I am a history buff. Though my enthusiasm for history has been confined mostly to documentaries and various readings, I have, nevertheless, been voluntarily exposed to quite a lot of information about human history. From anthropology to ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome to European, US colonial and US Presidential history, I am in awe of it all.

If the show is about the search for Atlantis, discovering a new tomb, or simply a reference to a saying from Poor Richard’s almanac, I’m in! Oh, and UFO’s, of course, are a nice dessert from time to time. Though I am not convinced all unidentified flying objects are extraterrestrial. Perhaps we need to upgrade to UFO 3.0 and call it rather SEC, (Suspected Extraterrestrial Craft) Oh wait, isn’t that part of Wall Street?

In addition to my historical study inclinations, I am also quite a bit of a tech geek. I guess that’s a big reason I founded a computer company. While I no longer sit up at night in my PJs with my pager, I am still chronically fascinated with technology. I have gone from a deep dive bits and bytes micro view to more of a 10,000 foot macro view. Technology as it pertains to humans now gives me greater fulfillment than merely technology in and of itself. As much knowledge as I have amassed in how technology works at subterranean levels, the translation layer with its human users is where the true “kernel” resides for me. For after all, if a program is not used, does it make a sound?

The saying goes, “necessity is the mother of invention”. Generally, this saying is applicable to the lion’s share of all inventions. The printing press is, perhaps, a best of breed example for this need based innovation modality. Yet, there are instances of large regional and global inventions that emerged via an inversion of this supposed axiom. A couple of top contenders for this method are the Pyramids of the Giza Plateau in Egypt and Apple’s own iPad. Unlike the printing press where there was a need to advance and expedite the mass distribution of printed material. The needs for burial in the desert or reading the newspaper on a computer screen were not bursting at the seams. Yes, there were most definitely some underlying driving forces such as the religion of Egypt and people becoming more computer content-consumption oriented. But had the iPad or Pyramids never come to be, we would still bury dead bodies and click next-page with our computer mouse. Whereas the printing press indeed changed the world as it was known. The pyramids did not make burials better nor the iPad make more people read or watch videos. It just made the existing process sexier!

So then, why did these inventions materialize, if not from necessity? Simply… someone decided they were needed, built and marketed them well. The hole that was ultimately filled in the public brain trust by these items was more akin to boredom than innovation. I have watched numerous shows on Stonehenge, the Pyramids at Giza, Easter Island, and the Nazca Lines etc. It would seem there is this general dumbfoundedness by many a scientist and historian as to how the heck these ancient knuckleheads built these massive things? We know a lot about the “why” being mostly due to religion or as one of my favorite comics, Eddie Izzard advised regarding some insight on Stonehenge, “do you have a Henge?” Well, the mystery is solved! Here is how they did it! They had the time!

Indeed, if the IPad were a mallet, chisel, cart, lever or catapult in ancient times, we could build the largest Pyramid ever! Or at least download the app for that. Whether it was a henge, pyramid or a bunch of massive stone statues, they all were the IPads of their time to the people that built and used them. Think on it. These ancient products have all the elements of advanced technology, streamlined look and time passing ability of the IPad. What else was (is) there to do other than procreate and eat? While I would not think historians thousands of years from now will wonder how we built the iPad. They will, most certainly wonder what the heck we really did with the thing? So next time you are in Egypt take a picture of your IPad next to a pyramid. You will see absolutely no time between them.

Oh, those wacky percents. The 99 Percent is disenfranchised, the 1 Percent is fat and rich, Romney says 47 percent of the country wrote him off already. He’s right. Since the birth of the Occupy Movement, we have become a nation of statisticians, cataloging and compartmentalizing, unifying ourselves by segregation because there is strength in numbers, but only if it makes the evening news.

Election coverage being what it is around this time every 4 years, one can’t help but be peppered by a deluge of facts, figures, statistics and data from every orifice of the media. Here’s the one I heard on NPR the other day:

Six percent of America’s population will decide this election.

It turns out that 47% of us are dyed-in-the-wool, gun-toting, death-panel-fearing, card-carrying members of the Grand Old Party, hell bent on spending our nation’s dwindling fortune to buy B2 stealth bombers, tax breaks for Karl Rove’s friends, and a war with Iran and/or North Korea.

Another 47% of us are socialist, fetus-killing, bleeding-heart, tax-and-spend liberals intent on bankrupting this great nation by giving a handout to every Tom, Dick and Harry, and paying for it by mortgaging our national soul to the Chinese, who, despite their delicious food, are still Communists and will one day purchase and enslave us assuming the North Koreans don’t beat them to it.

The interesting thing about this combined 94% of We The People is that we are set in stone. We are steadfast in our commitment, blind in our ambition and so unwilling to consider alternatives that we would sooner move to Canada and start uttering every word twice – once in English, once in French – than cast a single solitary fraction of a vote for the other party.

So strong is our commitment, so singular our view, in fact, that even if a solar flare chanced to leap from the fiery surface of the sun, created gravity in the heavens above, sent the Earth tumbling through a wormhole, and gave birth to an alternate Bizzaro reality where Obama owned a gun store and Romney gave the tax man a little something extra every April, we would still find a way to vote for our guy on election day.

So, where does that leave us? Well friends, it leaves us firmly in the hands of 18,600,000 Americans who apparently haven’t yet made up their minds. Six percent of this nation has been tapped by fate to break the tie and offer a seat to the man who would be king until January 2016 when the next shift of SixPercenters will take up the mantle and give us a leader. Apparently it has always been thus, and shall be ever more.

“But wait!”, says me. “Now I feel disenfranchised.” Yup. But I did it to myself. And so did you. You and I are two peas in a pod. It doesn’t matter if your views match mine, we’re going to cancel each other out. We’re going to cast the same vote we always do for the same party we’ve always belonged to. Because Washington, Lincoln and Truman are dead, and no one can figure out how to cross the Great Divide and convince us to even consider the opposing point of view, let alone allow the notion of a vote across party lines to dance across the surface of our made-up minds.

So why even bother, you might wonder. Why get up early to vote before work? Why stand in line at your local elementary school, gazing blankly at badly cut out, anatomically incorrect earthworms wearing top hats and monicles, emblazoned with letters of the alphabet – Aa, Bb, Cc, etc –  just to cast a single vote that won’t matter a hill of beans in the long run? I wondered that too.

Turns out it does matter. It matters a great deal. It matters so damn much, in fact, that I feel a car analogy coming on:

Voting for president is like buying a hybrid.

The poster child for the auto-industry’s new generation of socially conscience conveyance, I think we can all agree, is the Toyota Prius. It’s a funny little creature, conspicuously green and shorthand for “we have kids and we care about the environment and we didn’t want to spend too much but we did want to say we drive a hybrid.”

Studies done by smarter people than I have conclusively shown that, in order to save money by driving a Prius, you’d have to drive the damn thing for something like 500 miles a week for ten years during a time of $6 gas while standing on your head reciting Asimov’s I, Robot backwards and in Latin. In other words, why the hell would you want one?

The answer is much more complex than simply the desire to stick it to the man and save a couple bucks doing it. The answer, in fact, has nothing to do with money at all.

The most important reason to buy a hybrid, electric, hydrogen or any other alternative fuel-powered car is what it says to the world. It says that you are willing to stand up for what you believe in to the detriment of your bank account, because the message must be sent: We can rely on the old way no longer, change must come.

This is an important message. This is our revolution, our occupy movement, our way of explaining to Big Auto in no uncertain terms that we demand a new way forward. And that, so vehement is our demand, we’re willing to pay extra for the privilege of not saving money. Because we believe that, should you be so moved, you might actually find within the depths of your R&D department – despite the backroom deals with your Big Oil counterparts – that a better way forward is possible, and that, one day, we will indeed have our hybrid cake and eat it too.

Get out the vote. Seriously.

My fellow Americans,

In a few short days, we will have the opportunity to avail ourselves of the greatest political process known to man. And, as the sun crests the horizon on a chilly November morning, a nation of people, the greatest on earth, will rise to the challenge laid before us by our forefathers. We will do that which is denied to too great a percentage of the world’s population, casting a ballot for whomever we choose. And we will do so with impunity; free from coercion, harm or death.

I submit to you that we vote not for a candidate, we vote for voting. We cast a ballot that carries not a single name, but the names of everyone who fought and died for our right to self-determination. We vote for the peace and prosperity we desire, for the freedom of speech we rely on, and for the betterment of our national consciousness, our education and our transcendence. We vote not for today, but for tomorrow. We vote for our way of life.

Allow me to quote the great Edward Levin:

“We vote to engage ourselves, to fan the flames of our own belief and commitment, so that even if we doubt the efficacy of our ballot, voting retains its luster as a privilege, essential right and sacred obligation.”

So on November 6th, 2012, please do your duty. Even if your state is already counted for one candidate or the other, do your duty. Even if sometimes you can’t tell the difference between The Right and The Left, do your duty. Even if you’re busy, even if you’re late, take this moment to make your voice heard in chorus with your fellow man. Because you can, because you should and because you must.

When Tuesday comes, step into the booth. Search your conscience, search your soul, and then pull your lever and make your choice. Do you duty and make us proud.

-KJ

I was reading a piece in the April 2012 issue of PRINT Magazine about Walt Disney’s dream for the groundbreaking animation classic Fantasia (1940). Walt really wanted it to be an ever-evolving and changing showcase of the state-of-the-art in filmmaking.

Walt Disney had a dream to keep making new versions of the film. And while that dream came true… sorta…. with the millennial release of Fantasia 2000, which added some new segments marrying computer generated imagery with hand-drawn animation, I’m not sure it’s exactly what Walt had in mind. Ultimately, he wanted it to always foreshadow what was to come, to be ahead of it’s time. But that’s the thing. Walt didn’t care how crazy the idea seemed at the time. All he knew was that he had to try and do it.

Now Fantasia, groundbreaking as it was, was not well-received initially. It was only Disney’s third feature and incredibly expensive to produce and show to an audience. An audience that was more used to those charming Silly Symphonies animated shorts, than a feature length audio visual feast of operatic proportions. It was the first feature to be shown in stereophonic sound and required theaters be specially outfitted with the right equipment to play the lush orchestral soundtrack the way it was intended. An undertaking that required Disney to lease theaters and install the necessary sound equipment.

I’m sure people thought he was nuts. It didn’t make sense to anyone but a  visionary like Walt. Today it’s widely acknowledged as a landmark achievement in animation and cinema. Back then, it was a wild idea – a passion project.

“It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.”
–Walt Disney

I think it’s always important to hold onto those wild ideas and feel free to explore beyond what is known to be possible. Embrace a bit of the craziness now and again. Very often it’s those seemingly silly side projects (say that three times fast!) that bear the most amazing fruit.

And you’ll always have someone telling you it can’t be done right up until the time that you’ve done it. America was built on dreamers asking the question, “Wouldn’t it be great if…”

The fun part is finishing that sentence.

Full disclosure: that title is an utter fabrication of the truth. I could no more create a smart phone operating system than invent and subsequently pilot a solar-powered space shuttle from the dark side of the moon to the biggest crater on Mars. I just don’t have it in me.

But, after owning what any halfway rational human would rightly consider waaaay too many android-powered phones, I am pleased as punch to report that my latest acquisition has released a torrent of android-powered endorphins so extreme as to have me swimming in delusions of grandure.

Act 1: I finally figure out why most Android phones suck.

The answer lies in the capitalistic hubris of Verizon and Motorola. I’m sure there’s plenty more blame to go around, but my personal experience has led me to believe that somewhere between the time Google engineers delivered their latest version of Android, and the moment I sauntered into a Verizon store to pick out my next little bundle of digital joy, someone besides Google made a decision  to “make it better”.

They didn’t.

What they did was satisfy someone’s inane craving to futz with a perfectly good product in order to, I don’t know, make more money I guess. Someone decided to build an overlay for the pure Android experience that would make you want to buy ringtones, use specific wallpaper, find yourself unable to install certain apps and give the phone – wait for it – personality!

In other words, in a terribly misguided effort by Verizon and Motorola to make things better for Verizon and Motorola, Verizon and Motorola made things worse for us. They, in the grand tradition of the world’s undisputed bloat-wear king, Dell, added in a bunch of useless crap designed so badly that it literally brought even the strongest mobile processor to its very knees with every swipe, poke and launch.

What they ended up accomplishing—besides alienating customers—was to simply deepen the Grand Canyon-sized chasm of usability between every Android device and what is arguably the bar by which all smart phones will be judged from here to eternity: the iPhone.

Act 2: Why doesn’t Kevin just shut up and buy an iPhone?

Glad you asked. The fact is, I thought pretty long and hard about it. The interface is fantastic: it’s light, responsive and thoughtful. It’s priced similar to other devices in its class and, let’s face it, everyone is doing it.

So why, you might wonder, did I climb into bed with the robot instead of the fruit? The answer has nothing to do with the phone and everything to do with the carrier. When iPhone was released, it was available only on AT&T, provider of the world’s crappiest network ever. Call me old fashioned, but one of my primary desires when it comes to phones is the ability to make phone calls. AT&T kinda left that part out. And so I kinda left out the part where I give them my money.

I made a choice to stick with Verizon despite their lack of iPhone and took a leap of faith into the loving arms of Google. And, while I must admit that my earliest impressions of Android left me desirous of a much more mature operating system (and selection of apps), I do finally feel vindicated having stumbled into the world’s most delicious Ice Cream Sandwich.

Act 3: Just desserts.

Google names each iteration of their mobile OS after a dessert. I jumped on the bandwagon somewhere around Éclair. By the time Froyo came out I was fairly convinced I would like Android better and better. When my phone received its Gingerbread update, I found myself nearly ecstatic, the amazing improvements it brought bested only by Honeycomb which is about the time I knew that Android had arrived.

But it was not until this latest iteration, the one that those of us in the know refer to succinctly as “ICS”, that I experienced the official end of even the most minuscule, latent or unreasonable desire to own an iPhone instead.

It was the purchasing experience of this new phone, in fact, that finally provided the epiphany I’m writing about now.

Glutton for punishment that I am, I walked into the Verizon shop expecting to walk out again with the new Motorola Razr. It turns out, I was lucky enough to chat with a particularly informed Verizon employee who was busy coveting the new Samsung Galaxy Nexus (ironically he couldn’t have one because Verizon wouldn’t let him out of his contract).

He explained to me in true Android fan-boy fervor that, not only was this the only handset on the planet running the new Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android, it was the only phone on the planet with an absolutely pure installation of the OS. No bloat-wear, no half-hearted GPS, no special ringtone purchasing application. Just pure Android as the gods of Google intended it.

It is only now that I understand how enjoyable a non-Apple mobile OS can be. It is only now that I get why you don’t need the biggest processor in the world if you have a wisely-coded piece of software. And it is only now that I finally feel on the level with, if not superior to, the teaming masses of iPhone junkies who have heretofore enjoyed a smooth, refined and happy cell phone experience.

Intermission: A thought about hardware.

Yes, you can install an operating system on just about any amalgamation of speeds and feeds. You can get it to sit on a device powered by a hamster wheel and a hard drive better suited to a calculator than a personal computer. But that doesn’t mean the OS is going to run well. In fact, if it runs at all, it will likely limp and groan at your every command like an octogenarian on the Army Ranger obstacle course. And you’ll end up believing your smart phone operating system sucks. But it doesn’t. It’s just starved for power.

We ask so much of these little devices. And companies like Google and Apple aren’t going to deny you all those wonderful but power hungry features you crave. So they include all those bells and whistles which ask the hardware to do all sorts of crazy backflips.

In the case of the iPhone, that’s not necessarily a bad thing since it’s one company designing both pieces (software and hardware). Not so with Google’s Android. The fact is, the folks at Google have no idea which handset their OS is going to end up running. And they also have no choice but to keep up with the Joneses.

To solve this little conundrum, they were nice enough to give us the gPhone (my word) in partnership with Samsung. And how well this device runs must be the best kept secret in the Android community because everyone and their mother is raving about HTC and Motorola. Nothing against those guys but, wow, what a difference it makes when you get your eggs from the chicken coup instead of an Egg McMuffin.

Act 4: What have we learned here?

Well, let’s review shall we? What we know so far is that, no matter how much market share Google has in the mobile phone category, a certain percentage of Android users are  going to come away with a bad taste in their mouth. The reason, of course, is not necessarily Android, but the pairing of Android with inferior hardware and the afterthought of a software overlay.

This is the same reason there are certain people who just hate Windows. Despite it being a very well constructed operating system, you load it onto a terrible computer and it will make your life miserable. Is that Microsoft’s fault? Well, sorta.  They did agree to let every Tom, Dick and Harry put their OS on any toaster with a processor. But ask a Microsoft engineer what kind of computer he’d like to see that OS running on, and you can bet it’s not going to be one of those netbooks you find at Walmart.

I don’t think that strategy is bad. Google and Microsoft enjoy incredible market share because of their open architecture.

As I said, the Galaxy Nexus is actually the Google phone. It’s Google’s baby and, like iPhone, is the perfect balance of software and hardware. Therefore, the user experience is wonderful. This isn’t rocket science, it’s just good design. We do the same thing at Rain, tuning the software and hardware in perfect harmony to ensure a really great user experience.

The bottom line is, don’t let anyone mess with your experience. Be a discerning and informed customer, demand good design in exchange for your money and expect more. I smile every time I turn on my phone. The screen is beautiful, it’s fast as hell and it even makes phone calls. What is it they say about having your cake and eating it to?

-KJ

God forbid Jami McGraw, Rain’s young director of all things technical, deigns to step foot into my office while any sort of instrumental, non-classical, post-modern, post-fusion, post-bop – I hesitate to utter the word “smooth” – music is dancing forth from my delightfully accurate Bose speakers while said technical director is in a sardonic state of mind.

“What, are you watching the Weather Channel?” he’ll snidely remark. And then, in a mock-weather-channel, adult contemporary voice-over kind of tone, he’ll pepper me with faux meteorological updates. “Expect sunshine and the occasional cloud in Belvedere, Wisconsin tomorrow…”. “Your 5 day forecast, brought to you by Binkerton Chrysler, is…

Act 1: Guitar Hero

There was a drummer in Philadelphia named Tom Walling. He and I were attached at the hip for many years as a bass player/drummer combination that would sleep around with any guitar, tenor sax or piano player with 50 bucks and a gig.

It was Tom who first introduced me to the phrase “guitar hoagie”. If you ever lived in Philly, you would know that a hoagie is philadelphian for a hero (or any other euphemism for a long roll filled with cold cuts, lettuce, tomato and mayo). This was before the era of the now ubiquitous video game of the same name and was meant to denote someone like Steve Vai or Joe Satriani who wielded jaw-dropping chops to create an instrumental masturbation of sixteenth notes and a wall of whammy bar flavored distortion (think Eddie Van Halen without a lead singer).

It was Tom’s turn of phrase that finally gave title to the type of musicians I idolized when I fell in love for the first time. I, at the tender age of 16, gave my heart willingly to the bass guitar and never looked back. But for some reason, instead of gravitating towards Paul McCartney and the bass player from Aerosmith who’s name no one ever bothers to learn (it’s Tom Hamilton), I became obsessed with what I suppose should be described as Bass Hoagies. Names like Stu Hamm and Randy Coven come to mind.

They would weave beautiful melodies with technique far out of my reach. They would release album after album of music that no one but me would ever want to listen to – instrumental odes to the instrument I held most dear, filled with slapping, tapping, artificial harmonics and lush Major 9 harmonies. Going back to listen to these recordings, your average layman could be forgiven for describing them as a form of what we now know as smooth jazz.

Act 2: A Little Ditty ‘Bout Gerald And Pat

Whether or not the names Gerald Veasley and Pat Metheny ring a bell, you’ve no doubt heard their music. It would likely have been the day you chipped a tooth and booked an emergency session with your dentist. You were sitting in the waiting room hoping he could fit you in quickly so you could go back and continue eating the Skittles that wrecked your chompers in the first place. And as you were thumbing through a dog-eared copy of Time from July 1993, a trace of melodic guitar or soprano sax wafted by like the scent of bacon through the window of a trashy diner.

It held your attention for exactly 13 nanoseconds after which you no doubt flipped the page in US Weekly and went back to studiosly ignoring Gerald or Pat as they leaked out of the old speakers in the ceiling like melted asbestos.

That, my friends, is smooth jazz.

Gerald Veasley is a world renown bass player with whom I studied at UArts, my alma mater. I ended up practically living at his house during that time (much to his wife’s chagrin, I’m sure) doing this and that in his studio in exchange for extra lessons on how to be a well-rounded musician and, as it turns out, a well-rounded human being.

Gerald makes smooth jazz. He does it on purpose. And, if you have the good fortune to come across some of his music – and if you take a moment to pay attention to it despite it being foisted upon you as musical sorbet to keep you calm amidst the sounds of teeth being drilled – you’ll notice that it is incredibly well constructed. Every note is thoughtfully placed, every motif classically developed, every instrument mixed to create a harmonious timbre. It is, in a word, good.

You’ll find the same results after inspecting Pat Metheny, arguably one of the greatest guitarists of our time. My point is, neither of these guys are Kenny G. They are wonderful artists who deserve to be lauded above most others. They simply make a kind of music that, when turned down low and filtered through the speakers in a Whole Foods, tends to be innocuous and calming. It’s not their fault.

Act 3: The Good, The Bad and The Utterly Forgettable

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of terrible music out there. The fact is, as soon as the era of Bebop gave way to Fusion, Jazz began its inexorable crawl toward muzak. And, while in the 70′s and 80′s, Weather Report, Return to Forever and The Brecker Brothers made some of the most badass, coke-snorting, rock your socks off modern jazz fusion ever recorded, it was inevitable that the more melodious of their compositions would eventually find their way into cubicle farms and old people homes.

This in turn produced revenue, and that in turn produced an army of crappy musicians whose sole purpose was to produce mountains of the worst vanilla, invisible and disturbingly pointless music the world has ever known, simply to make a buck in the last mass-market venue available to the real jazz musicians of yore: the smooth jazz radio station.

Act 4: Kill Jami Vol. 1

No matter what Jami says, no matter how close I come to firing him for talking down about Pandora’s decision to play Marcus Miller’s awesome rendition of Goodbye Pork Pie Hat, I know that he, like so many others, detects the scent of smoothness wafting from my office and makes an unfair judgement about the quality of the book merely from the sound of its cover.

To be honest, Jami is one hell of a musician himself. And I know that he just gives me a hard time for the comedic value it produces, despite the fact that, as CEO, I’m fairly certain I could have him killed.

But neither his good-natured ball busting, nor the similarly-natured comments you’re welcome to leave below, change the fact that smooth jazz, when done well, is the evolutionary detritus left after the implosion of an art form propagated by all those amazing musicians from Bix Beiderbecke to Louis Armstrong to Miles Davis to Chick Corea.

It’s what we have left. Miles is gone. Satchmo is gone. Coltrane is gone. We can listen to their old recordings over and over again but I think it’s safe to assume they’re not making any new ones.

So, when you find yourself in the mood for a little culture, when you desire the taste of music performed by those who put aside all aspects of a normal life to practice their instrument 12 hours a day for years on end, when you suddenly think to yourself that man cannot live by Beyonce alone, try flipping to the smooth jazz channel and listen for the gems amongst the flotsam. They’re in there if you search for them.

-KJ

“How can you be a musician when you hate music?” Keith mockingly snarked at me after I again turned up my Adrien Brody-esque nose at a Lou Reed track I found particularly annoying. This after turning up that same nose at half a dozen other classic, critically acclaimed songs iTunes happened to feel like randomly playing one afternoon at Rain HQ, but that I simply was not in the mood for at the time.

This is an ongoing thing with me. I did indeed spend much of my adult life as a professional musician. I studied, I opened my mind, I saw the world and I came back with the same inescapable desire to listen to the same 10 records I always do.

I demand only to listen to a tightly woven catalog bearing such titles as Nightfly by Donald Fagan; Sheryl Crow’s The Globe Sessions; Graceland, one of the greatest records ever made by the only worthwhile 50% of Simon and Garfunkle; the adult-contemporary-trope-that-dare-not-speak-it’s-name, Ten Summoners Tales by Mr. Sting; and, of course, the greatest recording of all time, the album I want played at my funeral, Kind of Blue by the late, great Miles Davis.

I listen to these and half a dozen other seminal works in their entirety, from track one to the end, over and over and over again whenever my brain demands to be fed music that is at once as sophisticated as The French Laundry yet as comforting as McDonald’s. I know every inch of them – the thump of every bass line, the timbre of every vocal performance, Miles’ solo on So What - like the back of my very large hands.

Keith is right, of course. One must broaden one’s horizons. And music, like all forms of art, is meant to progress lest it languish in a pool of its own obsolescence, condemned to a prison of dusty, music history tomes and 78 RPM vinyl. Further, the other half of my brain, the one that craves novelty, innovation and new information, understands inherently how valuable new music can be. It seeks out unique points of view and begs for a change.

So what’s a guy to do? I don’t necessarily know what I want to hear at the moment, I certainly don’t have time to agonize over the decision, and my catalog, as previously admitted, is a tad thin.

Technology to the rescue.

After downloading and subesequently rejecting Spotify out of hand, I found my way to a source of music technology that everyone already knew about, forgot about, rediscovered, bought stock in post-IPO and then forgot about again: Pandora.

Unless you live in a cave on an island in the sea, you no doubt already understand the concept of Pandora. It’s basically internet radio for those with ADHD and a burning desire for Short Attention Span Theater. You pick a genre, artist or song, hit play and Pandora showers you with track after track of similar music. You can literally listen to it 24 hours a day, occasionally admonishing your digital overlord for a bad choice via the “next” button upon which it tacitly apologizes for its thoughtless transgression and moves on to the next song, making careful note to never again soil your delicate ears with such bourgeois drivel.

Life with Pandora

It took exactly one month for commerce to come into play. I, like everyone else on the planet, elected to try Pandora for free. My compact with the devil was a trade of endless free music in exchange for being slapped in the face by an ad for Lexus and/or Netflix every few songs. It also interrupted my subconscious revery more than a few times a day to literally ask me if I was still listening. I was.

Somewhere around day 10 I began to wonder how much it would cost to be rid of these distractions. It took me until day 15 to work up the enthusiasm to simply find out that the answer to my question was 36 dollars. But it wasn’t until day 26 that I began to seriously consider investing in my musical peace of mind.

On or about the 30th day, my head became so saturated with the constant digital niggling of poorly constructed radio advertising and queries as to my continuing presence at the computer (where else would I be?) that I finally broke down. And in one fluid motion brought my credit card out of its hiding place, through the website and into the loving arms of Pandora’s bank. It only occurred to me days later to imagine an evil man in a black hat, alternately rubbing his hands together and twirling a long, black mustache as he cackled at the collection of my 36 quid “right when we were expecting it”.

Indeed.

Bring me Bebop.

Having studied, played, built and subsequently aborted a career in Jazz, I tend to find it particularly comforting. It calls back to simpler days when life was only about practicing my instrument, playing dark, smoky clubs and getting drunk. That, and the fact that the kind of Jazz I listen to has no lyrical content to distract me from whatever I’m writing at the time is likely the reason I demand that Pandora deliver to me a steady diet of Coltrane, Getz and Hancock from the time I check in to Rain on Foursquare every morning to the moment I trade my office for my MINI Cooper and begin the trudge home to NYC.

The fact that opening Pandora’s box for a scant thirty six bones (annually) can deliver a never-ending cascade of high quality ‘Bop at my every whim has solved one of the biggest problems I’ve ever had at Rain – that of my obviously way-too-small iTunes library. Add to that the ability to trade Coltrane and Davis for Corea and Brecker with a mere flick of the wrist in those times when I need a little modernity in my instrumental white noise, and you’ve got the makings of a perfect aural pacifier.

Needless to say, Pandora is also always willing to supplant Ms. Crow and Mr. Sting whenever I ask. And though I usually don’t do it at work, the good folks at Gimme Yer 36 Bucks, Inc. were nice enough to ensure that I could enjoy a decidedly more pop inspired catalog via my phone, tablet, Roku, and the laptop I use at home. So when I’m in the mood for something closer to the music I write, and when the furious voice of Keith rings in my ears, demanding that I broaden my horizons lest I become old and dusty myself, musical salvation is always just a click away.

Epilogue: Oh the irony.

Back in the beginning of Rain when Keith and I actually shared an office, we developed an accord whereby either of us could rightfully veto any song that found its way to the speakers we shared. Of course, he never vetoed anything. And I vetoed everything.

Pandora has a veto button built right in. And as I mentioned, you need only click once to banish a song, not just from the current playlist, but from every one hence forth. And so you might be forgiven for assuming that I have damn near worn out that button. But through an odd turn of synapses and newly formed chemical compounds in my brain that I now refer to as The Pandora Effect, I hit the veto button almost never.

Lou Reed could push his way into my ears just before the Black Keys and after The Roots and I will not only let him play, I will actually listen deeply as I’m wont to do with my old standards, feeling the thump of the bass, the timbre of the vocals and whatever the equivalent to Miles’ solo on So What would be in this case. And I enjoy it. A lot.

-KJ

Gridlock. It used to be enjoyed only by those of us in cities big enough to officially have way too many cars. In NYC, the phenomenon occurs when an intersection becomes clogged with vehicles, those both already in the flow of traffic and those who want to merge with the flow, but are stymied by a similar glut of frustrated motorists clogging the next intersection.

The most frustrating thing about gridlock is that it can be prevented. We have a law in New York City referred to by the locals as “Don’t Block The Box”. There is a crosshatch of painted lines in the middle of major intersections. If your tires are touching one of them when the light turns red, you are officially blocking the box and, theoretically at least, subject to a fine of up to 350 of your hard-earned ducats.

All you have to do to avoid blocking the box – and in turn, gridlock itself – is not be the jerk who crams himself into the intersection just as the light turns red again, this in an effort to block merging traffic and secure a coveted spot at the back of the next big lineup of immobile and furious prisoners.

The theory here is that, if everyone agrees to wait until the light is green AND there is a space on the next block for your car, eventually the situation will right itself and an equal number of cars from each direction will enter the flow of traffic, like a zipper closing as the teeth from the left and right take turns joining together. (You’ll no doubt notice having never seen a zipper that occasionally decides to use two teeth from the left before one from the right.)

A new definition of gridlock.

It’s been a long time since I felt the satisfying comfort of a phrase whose meaning was wonderfully unambiguous. I was holding on to the word gridlock as a solely automotive term right up until the two primary factions of our dislocated government simply forgot how to deal with each other with any sort of aplomb, gravitas or maturity.

I don’t remember when it happened. But I do remember a wonderful Ken Burns documentary called The Congress. My on-again-off-again best friend, Netflix, delivered The Congress to me one evening when I was in the mood for a history lesson decidedly less pedantic than the type force fed to me through my old, but most surely not missed, high school feeding tube.

The documentary is something like 90 minutes long and I highly recommend it. But, for those of you with too much to do to and very little time in which to do it, allow me to save you 89 minutes and give you Ken’s primary and well constructed thesis. Our republic today enjoys its stance on the shoulders of giants because said giants built the legislative branch of our goverment around one word:

Compromise.

When Mr. Burns first lent me this tidbit of wisdom, I was unwilling to accept it. I went so far as to adopt a stance of righteous indignation right there on my couch. How dare our representative forefathers trade in the strength of their convictions for a non-offensive ride on It’s A Small World when they should be forcing a Space Mountain-sized dose of “it’s my way or the highway” down the throats of their enemies!

Ah, but therein lies the rub. The Republicans, the narrator intoned, were not the enemies of the Democrats or vice versa. They were simply men of an alternate mindset, one no less cogent or reasonable than that of their counterparts. Just different. And so, in the spirit of setting the cogs of modern governance in motion, the two sides would come together, clash to the point of outdoor-voices and wild gesticulations, and end up with a way forward that saw each party both giving and receiving pieces of its closest held convictions for the betterment of those Americans not elected to be present during these proceedings.

Where did all the adults go?

For those of you reading this blog post in the year 3015 after just freeing my antique laptop from the time capsule your robot unearthed on the land your family claimed via a post-apocalyptic Manifest Destiny kind of thing that will likely be the subject of a documentary published by a modern day Ken Burns somewhere around the year 3098, I’ll remind you that way back on August 2, 2011 the American government finally reached a level of self-delusion so insidous that it was compelled to join six enemies from each party in a thinly veiled PR campaign ostensibly to reduce government spending by decree of – wait for it – compromise!

Hopefully with the benefit of hindsight, you’ll be able to see without too much effort, how monumentally stupid this waste of time really was. Your robotic history tutor will no doubt explain to you, in a digitized approximation of Edna Krabappel‘s voice, that the political environment of 2011 was so clogged with vitriol and holier-than-thou that there was clearly no way in hell that Patty (co-chair), Max, John, Xavier, Jim, Chris, Jon, Rob, Pat, Jeb (co-chair), Fred and Dave would ever in a million years succeed in finding common ground on which processed lunch meat should be on their complimentary congressional deli tray, let alone how to alleviate our budget of 1.2 trillion dollars worth of national debt.

The law of unintended consequences.

I could absolutely give a crap about basketball. It’s just not my thing. But I found a piece on NPR’s Marketplace about another example of 2011 gridlock particularly interesting as it caressed my tired ears during my gridlocked drive home to lower Manhattan the other day.

It turns out that the NBA has something in common with our legislative branch other than over-inflated monetary rewards for failure. The argument they’re having about how over-inflated these rewards should be has become so combative that all proceedings have ground to a halt and nothing is getting done at all. Sound familiar?

My theory, the one that rouses me from slumber, covered in a cold, wet film of condensation in the middle of the night, is that a river of bile is flowing down from the House and Senate like so much waste from a ruptured water filtration conduit, and infecting the subconscious of every American, turning the color of our collective zeitgeist to a scrofulous and unsettling brown.

As I said, I’m not really going to shed a tear for Kobe Bryant the day he realizes that, personal finances being what they are, he should really put the Ferrari on Craigslist before sliding  his American Express Black card through the Lamborghini dealership’s cash register.

But that NPR piece did mention a small army of local business owners, concession stand workers and whatever the basketball equivalent to Zamboni machine operators is who are now finding themselves financially t-boned because Kobe and his boss can’t agree on the color of the aforementioned Lamborghini. In other words, the many get screwed because the few are acting like children.

Please, someone take the high road.

I don’t know when or if this will change. My hope is that we have not fallen so far as to beset every future generation with less and less governmental efficacy as days go by, culminating in the systemic breakdown of the republic I personally hold dear.

I’m hoping and praying for a savior from either side of the isle who will put aside his or her ingrained pugilism, hit the breaks when the light turns red and stand up as a shining example of modern governance to declare to the world in no uncertain terms, “No! I will not block the box!”

-KJ

One of my many Renaissance-Man interests is tires and wheels. The look of a good tire and wheel combination can make or break the overall look of the entire car. Though heels might seem to be the lion’s share contributor to the look of a car’s “feet”, I think it is subtler lines and tread of the tire that make the shoe.

What is even more significant to me is the amalgamation of look and performance specifically for the tire. Other than a larger diameter and perhaps the material, wheels do not contribute as much to performance as the tire. For it is where the “rubber hits the road” that one’s 2 or 3 ton metal chariot moves you forward, stops before you hit the dime or spins you out.

As an owner of about 20 cars since I began driving and the resident chief influencer and advisor for my friends, family and business associates for most things automobile, I have examined, used and purchased over 200 tires. In this pile of tires have been those made by Continental, Toyo, Cooper, General, Bridgestone, Firestone, Kuhmo and Michelin, to name a few. Over this time I have garnered strong opinion as to what a good tire is in
look, performance and value. While each tire manufacturer has their pros and cons, IMHO, the all-time looser is Michelin.

As a matter of fact, the only Michelin tires I have ever owned where those that came on a new car. The moment the Michys wear out (which is really fast and in a unique way compared to other manufacturers) I dump ‘em and get one of my favs. So why my personal distain for this particular manufacturer? Not just a particular model, but the manufacturer itself? I can answer this in two words, Hockey Puck!

Of all the qualities, and lack thereof, Michelin rubber products offer, their propensity to wear by solidification is the most unique. Most tires wear by losing rubber in the tread as well as maybe hardening a bit over the life of the tire. But all the Michelin’s tires I have used harden to an unacceptable point within ten to twenty thousand miles. I have literally
tossed out Michelin tires that had viable tread but were so rock hard; they would slip in a slow pull out from a stop sign in a rural area on a dry sunny day with no cars coming the other way. You want to know what it is like to drive on hockey pucks? Pull up a chair my friend.

Recently, I purchased a pair of Michelin Stealth wiper blades. Put em on my 2011 Toyota Avalon (thankfully with Bridgestone tires). They worked great for about a week. Then I started getting streaks. I cleaned and adjusted them to no avail. Then I brought them back to Wal-Mart and traded for a brand new set. Again, one week, streaks. Tossed that second set of Michy wipers in the trash (just like I have done with their tires) and bought a set
of Rain-X Latitudes. It has been blissful windshield wiping ever since.

Next my wife’s GTI gets a flat tire. Her summer tires are Continental ContiPro Contacts. But the flat happened after I put on her General Altimaxx Artic snow tires (the best snow tire ever!). when I when into the trunk, thetemporary spare was a Michelin. What a GREAT spare tire. Rock solid seeming like it was airless. So I thought, ok now I see a good use got Michelin tires. Much like medications that have off-prescription uses or were morphed into a completely different healing trajectory (like Rogaine whose humble beginnings and main ingredient were to treat high blood pressure as a antihypertensive vasodilator), Michelin rubber products have a particular property of hardening with use that should be explored for other products, like hockey pucks. Unlike the eureka discovery of the hair regrowth properties on Minoxidil, the original use of Michelin rubber products, tires, should not be continued. But one promising spin-off product for Michelin’s time released rubber hardening technology is the Tweel.  Now here is where we might witness the evolution of Michelin from its own primordial ooze, or should I say puck? While there are certain arenas even in tire deployment that a harder rubber is a plus, (ei RV and tractor trailer tires), for the civilians we like softer rides and a better grip on the road. So the Tweel might be the best thing since the Reese’s  Peanut Butter Cup. Hmm, peanut butter cups and hockey pucks do look alike. But do they tase the same?

I did it. I cut the umbilical that had me tethered to a high speed network of terrible content and an almost continuous loop of Evan Almighty. I am currently stealing $150 from Time Warner every single month. Or at least it feels that way. It feels as though I should be giving them too much money for not enough quality simply because I’ve always done it.

This marks the first time in my life that I’ve been without cable. Ever since those days when I’d find myself sitting inches from the TV so I could flip channels with the manual rotary dial on the cable box (yes, I’m that old), I had an innate desire to have access to hundreds of channels – whether there was anything good on or not.

By the time I moved out on my own, cable represented a basic human right like food and democracy. No way would I ever deign to inhabit an apartment in the big city without a direct line to reruns of Night Court and Discovery Channel documentaries about American Standard urinals.

In economic times such as these, you’d be forgiven for assuming that my motives were based on the fiscal realities of my now least favorite utility. But you’d be wrong. My reasons are much less responsible than that. I am, in fact, simply sick and tired of throwing good money after bad into the hands of those who don’t care a wit about anything but maintaining the status-quo. And while it’s true that there are those cable companies who are prepared to innovate, providing a wonderful array of services and entertainment for one low, low price, mine wasn’t one of them. And so I kicked them to the curb.

Entertainment at Casa de Jacoby

My wife, Cora, and I never watched a ton of TV. We’re interested in lots of entertaining things. We read, we watch movies, we listen to music. But when we were in the mood to be sucked into the boob-tube, we offered ourselves unreservedly to the gods of programming, inviting them to do with our suicidal brain cells as they wished for as long as it took to sate our bloated appetites for comforting crap.

When we were so moved, we’d plop down on the couch and find something entertaining. Often times that entertainment would come from the DVR part of our cable package. I see now that this was the beginning of the end, a signal that entertainment could be had according to our schedule, not someone else’s.

Shortly after that, we started streaming from our new Roku that carried a one-time fee two-thirds that of the monthly cable bill. Netflix, despite the best efforts of their web designers or lack thereof, filled in a lot of blanks with streaming content and the coasters that would arrive via red envelope now and then.

Next came Amazon for the occasional movie, Hulu for the occasional episode of 30 Rock and YouTube for the occasional video of a sneezing panda or a cat in the death grip of two Granny Smith apples. Pretty soon, the cable box became the worlds most expensive digital clock, the value of which I only realized – and subsequently mourned the loss of – once we had returned it to its rightful owner.

Night after night, Cora and I would search in vain for something halfway decent to entertain us. And night after night we would end up streaming our desired content on-demand or popping a disc into the DVD player. Day after day a festering nag plagued my subconscious, planting tiny seeds of doubt that would grow into an Arab Spring of revolt against the vicious dictator who sought to subjugate my down time and exact $150 a month for the favor.

And so, after much internal strife, I incited a come-to-Jesus discussion with Cora, planned a coup d’etat against the powers that be, and sent my cable box hurtling past my ambivalent cats, out the window and down the street. Ironically, we forgot to give back the remote.

I doubt anyone will notice.

Epilogue

So, how do I feel after the amputation? Have I adjusted to this new life? Am I fulfilled and renewed or am I a broken shell of a man, destitute by his lack of Jersey Shore and Colgate commercials?

I feel fine. I don’t watch any less TV. Not one bit. The only difference is that the TV is hooked up to my Roku, Wii, laptop and DVD player. And I’m a better man for it. I watch what I want to watch when I want to watch it. Content creators still get my money. Advertisers still get my attention. It is simply a more even exchange now – just as it should be.

I will say, it took a while to find the right clock to replace the one on that cable box. Which gives me an idea for clocks shaped like cable boxes. Perhaps that’s Rain’s next product. You never know.

-KJ

I’m a transplant. I was actually born in South Africa directly preceding a quick jump to Toronto when I was a wee tike. That said, I am the first in my family to grow up in North America. I was exposed by my parents, if not directly at times, to the stark contrast between here and there. My last trip back to Johannesburg was before the end of Apartheid, an adventure that made an indelible mark on my sense of injustice, the imprint of my grandmother’s hand on my shoulder as she held me back from stepping on the wrong bus. “That’s not our bus”, she whispered. “That’s their bus.” Terrible.

On my drive home yesterday, a soothing voice from NPR drifted out of my car stereo cooing about manufacturing in China and its effect on our economy. As NPR tends to be, the piece was reasonably objective, not really complaining about our lack of manufacturing jobs as much as describing, from a macroeconomic perspective, the implications of the global economy to our job market.

Sometimes I listen to these things intently, studying every inflection  as it emanates from the speakers. And sometimes I simply let it waft over me, the salient bits of data creating concentric ripples of thought that take me on the kind of mental journey that makes rush hour traffic in Manhattan nearly bearable.

It was this latter style of listening that found me introspective. I was overcome – in all fairness I hope – with a bit of national pride. Rain computers are designed in the US. They are built in the US. And, perhaps most starkly contrasted to others in our field, they are supported here in the good ‘ol US of A.

It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.

I often tell those considering a new computer that every manufacturer in the world, from Apple to Dell to Acer, is purchasing technology from the same pool. We all get a visit from the technology fairy, whether daily, weekly or monthly, who reports that their company has just created something marvelous that will replace the previously marvelous thing and it will all be… well, marvelous.

I further tell people that, as this homogeneous purchasing style is the norm, in order to differentiate Apples from oranges, one must look at the details. If everyone is offering similar processors, memory and hard drives, what are they able to offer as a compelling reason for picking one against the next? In the case of Rain, we concentrate on tools for the creative community, working with our tech partners to bring their products into the creative space. We ask ourselves what type of processors, memory and hard drives (not to mention actual support for creative people) will work best in the service of someone making music, video and graphics.

But as important as that is, it’s not enough. Rain is also collectively of the mindset that we are responsible to take care of our own. And while “our own” does truly mean creative minds the world over, there is an added layer of “our own” physically connected to this American technology company. So we offer discounts to our military, cops, firefighters and other civil employees; we work closely with educators to help the next generation of Americans get creative; and we do our best to produce and keep jobs in New Jersey, in New York and in America.

Made in China is not bad.

Let’s be clear: Rain doesn’t manufacture hard drives. We purchase them from technology partners whose job it is to produce them as well and as inexpensively as possible. That often means doing it in another country. And to me that’s ok. If this is truly to be a global economy, and if Robert Reich is correct in his hypothesis that it’s time for us to borrow more to spend on our aging infrastructure, then we’re going to have to cuddle up to someone with deep pockets. And that list is perilously short right now. So if manufacturing certain things in the Far East means producing money that could potentially come back to our shores, it makes a certain amount of sense to me.

But as always, the devil is in the details. We, those few who guide technology companies through the murky waters of commerce, must never find ourselves satisfied to simply conduct our business a certain way because it was done that way last time. Every situation is different. Any broker will tell you to have a well diversified portfolio. Any liberal will tell you to spread the wealth. And as my dad always tells me: everything in moderation.

You do what you must.

I don’t begrudge any technology executive the right to follow his or her heart in the service of the customers, employees and stockholders for which he or she is responsible. And if true merit can be preferred upon a carefully considered decision to export manufacturing or support then who am I to look down my nose at them? I may be forced to those crossroads myself some day. And I’ll have to make an impossible decision. We all do it.

But for now, I’m downright proud, cheesy though it may be, to say that Rain employs as many Americans as it possibly can. Like carbon offsets, we do our best to make sure ample revenue stays at home just as some of it ends up on foreign shores.

And I also look forward to the day when “home” for Rain means not just our native US soil, but also the lands of like minded, responsible nations who treat their citizens with respect, reinvest their capital for the good of the world, and participate fairly in a global tide that will raise all boats.

Now that’s a global economy.

-KJ

So here I am. I’m sitting in traffic on the FDR, I’m late….again, but it’s of no mind, because as my left brain is driving, my right brain is rocking out on the steering wheel. Switching stations to catch my fix, (yes I still own a radio) I find myself irritated by the lack of appealing music… song after song that sounds exactly the same. What happened to music that had that ‘special something’, that raw appeal that captures you in the first millisecond of audition? Where was the friction I longed for? Friction? Yes, friction…

I arrived at a small club on Bleeker St. to be greeted by the lavish acoustic styling’s of a local singer/songwriter. Before I could even order my drink from the bartender, the hair rose on my neck from the richness of the sounds of the performer. There is just something about the raw sound of live music that I miss when listening to modern music. Every now and then I catch a new song that has that ‘something’, but again, it is a rarity. Now to be clear folks, I’m not referring to songwriting quality, or the musicality of the artist, (as that would be a separate article all together) but more to the sonic quality of the music. I found many years ago, my civilian ears were lost somewhere between my exodus from a flying faders console to my DAW rack mount computer. What I am referring to here peeps, what I long for and lament over, is friction.

By my definition, FRICTION is the tension one experiences when listening to music; the subtle imperfections that combine to be greater than the whole. If one were to listen to, say a piece like Vivaldi’s Spring, you would hear the crescendos, the ritards, the allegros. You would hear the way the piece ebb’s and flows. There is a story being told, a feeling, a friction. From a pop perspective, one might say that this is too complicated for the average listener, that the audience demands something simpler. It is often said that the ‘format’ of modern music must take into account the decreasing attention span of the average listener. I don’t know about you, but that ideal not only insults my intelligence, but makes me feel angry towards the companies that are dumping this stuff out of their ‘factories’. The word ‘format’ in ANY musical context makes me want to burn down buildings. I know I am not alone in this; so I ask friends, “Why do we put up with this shit?”

From an engineering standpoint, our listeners ears have been trained to listen to what they are being force fed. Everything is pitch fixed to perfection, every note exact. The drums, the rhythm all cut to a grid… quantized and chopped to exact perfection. Progressions are sampled on test groups to see what step-step-half step arrangement makes people feel good. The A-B-A-B-C-B, less than three minute pop ‘format’ has taken music hostage indefinitely. Songs are over compressed, and squashed down to fit in that perfect little box of industry standard sound.

Now, to be clear, I’m not trying to say that all of these technological advances in audio are bad. Certainly digital recording, the ability to get great sounds out of plugins, and utilize editing tools has taken engineering and production to a whole new level. My issue is that this technology is ‘making’ artists, and we can tell. While the bar gets raised on technological aids to embellish music, and assist mediocre artists, the bar is being lowered on talent. Image is becoming the driving force in artist success. A talented producer/engineer can make even the worst singer sound great. And if we put the right person out front for the audience to see, if we put the proper wrapper around that can of MUZAK……suddenly it’s a hit. So at what point do we draw the line? Who is to lead such a revolt? Do the listeners demand more? Do the engineers put their foot down, and say “We are getting off the auto-tune crack” “No more will we over-compress our tracks” For many years now, we have been bullied by labels that tell us what we want to hear and how it should sound. It seems about time to break away from the latest fads inspired by control groups and fractals. We realize that most labels are clenching their proverbial but cheeks, with one foot out the door and another on a banana peel, but do you really have to treat your artists like products at an ‘Everything for a dollar” store?

I’d like to tell a little story before I wrap up this rant. Once upon a time, we would go to the record store and buy an album (Yes al-bum noun \ˈal-bəm\) of our favorite artist. We would rush home to listen to the entire record, while scouring the album cover for artwork, and album credits, and lyrics and ”thankyou’s” to the drummers mom and Aunt Rita.

Years later, we would go to this same store and buy the latest tape (Yes taaaape noun \ˈtāp\) from our favorite band. We would again rush home, and put on side A, unfold the insert and look for lyrics, artwork and the mention of Aunt Rita. As side A completed, we would flip over to the B side, listen for a bit, and then maybe fast forward through the bogus filler tracks the band obviously put there to oblige their 3 album quota in their contract. Once again content, but a tad miffed that the $10 cassette with 10 songs really only had 7 good songs on it. So in theory, shouldn’t it have cost $7? But I digress.

So next trip, off we’d go to the same record store, buy a back patch for our denim jacket and some cone incense, but this time, we would buy the cassette single, because our favorite band’s last album wasn’t so great, and also because we had to have the black light poster of Tawny Kitaen slithering on a hotrod. We pay the cashier, rush home, put the single on, read quickly through the small insert in the cassette case, and then dial our best friend to tell them not to buy the single. “I’ll just make you a copy of the song with my new ‘high-speed dubbing’ feature on my boom box… (\ˈbüm\ \ˈbäks\. And so we did, albeit 13 times in a row on the same cassette, but that what real fans do, no?

Time passes, and we find ourselves at the same old record store, buying the latest CD of our new favorite band. We rush home, unfurl the CD jacket, look for Aunt Rita’s mention, and skip through tracks 1 through 5, looking for the highlights of the album. And, again, we call our friend to say, “I’ll just burn you a copy of the good songs. “ This time, we burn the pseudo-mixtape cd with the ‘best-of’ compilation of the last three cd’s we bought, as they were simply ok. Unfortunately that was $60 down the drain, and my buddy didn’t spend a dime. I just burned him a disk…..Hmmm.

10 years, and 10,000 downloads, torrents and MP3’s later I find myself reflecting on the state of the music industry now, partly with a melancholy nostalgia for days passed, but also with a sense of disdain. The old saying, “You get what you pay for” applies here in so many ways. However, what trumps this in the day of interwebs, is that you rarely pay for music now at all, so instead of ‘you get what you pay for’, it translates to ‘you get what you get’. Oddly enough, years later I went back to the old record store, only to find that there was no longer a record store there. Instead I was greeted with a large sign that read, ‘Welcome to the ‘everything for a Dollar’ Superstore”…

I really like to drive. I just don’t like to do it when other people are on the road. Unfortunately I live in New York City with 9 million other drivers and work in New Jersey with 9 million terrible drivers. Geographically speaking, I’m screwed.

It occurred to me the other day that, having brutally snatched my license from the cold, dead hands of the DMV at precisely the stroke of midnight on my 16th birthday, I have officially been behind the wheel for twenty years. Aside from making me sound old, that fact also bears proof to my having witnessed two decades of automotive revolution.

I saw the end of the carburetor, tossed unceremoniously on its choke, its face pressed up against the glass, watching as love and affection was lavished upon the younger, prettier fuel injector. I watched as the chasm grew between a speed limit imposed by the legislators of a bygone era and the cars that no longer needed the government’s draconian sign posts to help to save fuel and prevent injury.

But the saddest change of all, the loss that I morn above all others, is the death of the fast lane.

Move over, dammit.

I honestly don’t mind if you want to take it easy. I don’t mind if you want to put your car in neutral and try to coast uphill on the highway. I don’t mind if you want to text the first 500 pages of your memoir to your mother with one hand while you stuff a breakfast burrito down your gullet with the other and steer with your knees. All I ask is that you do it in the right lane.

Not to sound like a crotchety, old man here (“In my day, people knew which side of the road to drive on, dammit!“) but I look back on the early days of my tenure behind the wheel of a motor vehicle with nostalgia. I fondly remember the honor of steadfast rules like check your blind spots, don’t pass on the right, don’t snort heroin off the dashboard when traveling at more than 50mph, etc.

And, above all, if all else fails: LEFT LANE = FAST, RIGHT LANE = SLOW!

The burning question in my addled mind this fine Friday morning is: When was that unwritten rule abolished? When did the Speed Racers’ tacit agreement with the Grandmas get repealed? When did it become ok to feel smug about your constitutional right to do forty-five in the left lane of the NJ Turnpike while two miles of cars behind you silently wish you and all your relatives agonizing bodily harm?

Yes, I know I occasionally drive faster than the law permits. And yes, I know I may be detained and given a stern talking to by a civil servant with a gun and god-complex. And I take full accountability for my actions. I respect the authority that governs our highways and bi-ways in equal measure to my respect for a driver’s right to choose his or her velocity (within reason). So can’t we just go back to that whole left lane/right lane thing? It was working fine, wasn’t it?

The right lane is the new left lane

My ranting and raving from behind the wheel notwithstanding, I feel compelled to report an odd side effect of this new phenomenon.

While Grandma is toodling along the Garden State Parkway in the far left lane at 35mph as part of a caravan that includes a garbage truck, a soccer-mom applying mascara in the rearview of her minivan and a twelve-year-old with a learners permit in one of those Drivers Ed cars with two steering wheels, I continually find myself in the far right lane doing eighty with nary a car in sight.

The fact of the matter is, the driving population has become so indignant in their demand to drive slow in the fast lane, that the right lane has become the de facto left lane.

Now, you might think this would mollify the aggressive if not psychotic driver lurking  just below the surface of my heavy, right foot. But you’d be wrong. Because the recourse that yesterday’s left lane speeder could rightfully employ to guard against moving road blocks (i.e. the flashing of one’s high-beams, the tailgating, the angry looks, etc) are not an appropriate part of the right lane speeder’s bag of tricks. I simply cannot in good conscience, get on someone’s case for driving slow in the slow lane. But since the aforementioned recourse is no longer an effective argument to the self-righteous fast lane non-speeders, the only thing left to do is move to Montana. And there’s no way in hell I’m moving to Montana. CNN said those people are crazy.

-KJ

PS. Note to residents of Montana: Just kidding about the crazy thing.

It’s not customary for the Rain team to publically comment on everything we are notified of floating around the Internet ether. Like the prime directive, general order #1 from Star Trek, we observe, but try not to influence indigenous life on any given forum.

So we do not generally participate in online forums (though our CTO Robin Vincent who runs our subsidiary in the UK does) and, like many corporations, the presentation and distribution of information on or about our company is carefully considered.

That all said, we now have our Blog, Twitter and Facebook entities all aflutter with both corporate and individual information and mind sharing about Rain and many other worldly and other-worldly topics.  Clearly the cat is out of the bag. But our beloved CCO, Keith Link is one of the few people on this planet that can actually herd cats. So before I am  lassoed back into the corral, I must jump out of the cone of silence to comment on a thread I found at groups.google.com in rec.audio.pro. The thread ultimately speaks for itself. Like many forum threads there are statements both good and bad made by the writers that are not  necessarily true, misrepresented, mere opinion or out of context. Nevertheless, this particular thread had a statement that I cannot resist tossing back over the fence.

Mike Rivers has a very useful and well written blog site with many pertinent articles and reviews. He seems a good sort in what I have read from him thus far. I like his writing and find both his open forum and periodical information to be balanced and fair. But in this forum thread he made an inaccurate assumption as to why Rain does not reveal the innards of our systems. In my capacity as the head of design of all our products, this inaccuracy as to the reason we do not generally reveal the component level details of our computers has compelled me to make this sidebar correction.

I and the rest of the team at Rain Computers adhere to a principle of intellectual generosity. So first of all, if you want to know what motherboard, hard drives, video cards or any other component we use in our systems give us a call. We will gladly tell you. But here is why we do not generally advertise  what we call the “monotonous minutia” of the speeds and feeds of our systems. OK, ready? Here we go… it’s not about any individual component. Rain Computers are about best choice and balance of all components. The issue with the lion’s share of DIY (do-it-yourself) systems for audio and video is that they do not have a DIY R&D component. Certainly there is T&E (Trial and Error). But Rain possesses vast amounts of direct and contributed data from a plethora of computer component as well as audio and video hardware and software manufactures that cannot be purchased at a Fry’s or New Egg. While I could still argue that there is not really a $1,000 difference between our systems and a similar DIY (more like $500 to $800) the true value is in the intellectual property of our research, production methodology and support infrastructure.

The not-so-Secret Sauce: Experience.

My stepson is in the Navy. One day my wife and I were invited on the ship for family day. For 14 hours we traveled out to sea and roamed all about the USS George HW Bush Aircraft Carrier. We were pretty much allowed to go everywhere; the bridge, the engine room, berthing. I saw all kinds of technology and engineering. I could even take pictures. I took pictures and video of EVERYTHING I saw including a dilapidated old Dell computer next to the coffee maker in the flight deck control and launch operations room where the infamous and awesomely low-tech “Ouija Board,” resides. When I asked an officer if there were any security concerns or if any of the civilian guests could be spies, he replied, “we know for a fact that spies have been aboard our ships on many occasions”. This was strange to me at first. But when the officer explained that what made the US Navy the most powerful and effective military force in the world were people and training not hardware, I had a WOW moment. Yes, it is the training, the ways and means, the procedures and policies that make the Navy what it is. Though the 6.2 billion dollar aircraft carrier is most definitely a significant contributor to our naval prowess, it’s not like I was going to find some secret mystical orb 100 feet down in the underbelly of the ship (though I was actually down there).

So yes Mr. Rivers and all my fellow techno geeks, audio aficionados and gear slutz, what’s in the computer or an aircraft carrier is important. But it is how they are made and how they are run that is ultimately what makes them good or bad. Ultimately Rain Computers are physically just a select pile of components. I could recite chapter and verse how all the various components contribute or detract from audio application performance. But what truly makes a computer for creative applications useful is its ability to be transparent. For after all, was there ever a Grammy or Oscar for who built the best computer? I think not. But when the time comes, Rain will be seeking your vote.

There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who look at a slab of marble and see David, and those who look at a slab of marble and see a slab of marble. I am constantly reminding myself to be the former.

Throughout my career I’ve had the opportunity to work with some truly amazing minds. And now, in hindsight, I can finally point to the characteristic that sets them apart from the masses: the ability to recognize potential. A simple song that becomes an anthem. The flicker of a notion that cures cancer. A man given a second chance.

Potential is the fleeting opportunity for greatness.

Dare to dream

Recording my first solo album was an eye opening experience. To date I had simply been the bass player. I’d come in to the studio, listen to the track and out would come the bassline. But when I sat down with a collection of songs that had heretofore been arranged for and performed on a single, lowly acoustic guitar, the idea that my next task was to bring these tunes to their full potential was terrifying to say the least.

Now in the studio again to record my next project, I’m faced with the same challenge (though I’m better equipped this time). What I know so far is this: you have to dream the biggest dream you can possibly dream – and you have to do it wholly without fear.

It’s harder than it sounds. Because, unless you’re living in a bubble, you’ve got some negative stimuli in your life. And if you’re not careful, it will find it’s way under your skin and produce one hell of a No Can Do attitude. But, set yourself up in the right environment and you might just find an oasis of artistic grace in the desert of your tabula rasa.

Can you see it?

Potential comes in many forms and it’s often camouflaged, perhaps in an evolutionary effort to protect itself from those unworthy of its glory. And there are precious few people who have the ability to recognize it. Let’s face it, a diamond in the rough is ugly. It’s jagged and cloudy and you’d hardly know it was worth anything at all. But the well trained eye sees potential. To the well trained eye, it’s an engagement ring, a natural semiconductor or the crown jewel of a fairy tale kingdom.

The same can be said of a music producer. While the artist may be too close to the song, and the musicians too involved in their parts, the producer has the ability to stand back with cool objectivity, see the core for what it really is, and imagine a way to make it shine.

But here’s the thing: you have to know it’s there in the first place. And that’s the real trick, isn’t it.

Like most great things in life, it’s diabolically simple in concept, incredibly difficult in execution. In other words, it’s easy to talk about transcendence in theory, but much harder keep yourself from dismissing a monumental book by its monumentally ugly cover. So you have to ask yourself: Do you have the character to look past a scaly exterior? Would you have the presence of mind to take Keith Richards’ heroin-induced guitar riff and turn it into Satisfaction? Do you know a diamond in the rough when you see one?

Letting go.

I practice this particular instrument every day. It’s like a brain teaser. I like to daydream about how we could turn a new technology into a world-changing solution. I want to create something in the tradition of the very genesis of life, lifting the mundane from a microscopic particle to a deus ex machina. Oh, they’ll applaud that one. At least they do in my daydreams.

And so I wander into the studio again, and remind myself that anything is possible, that there are no limits. And I listen to those songs and imagine all the things they could be, like a parent’s vision of his newborn becoming president one day. And I pray to the gods of music that I’ll not waste the opportunity to recognize the potential and be deprived of its beauty.

We’ll see.

-KJ

Anthony Weiner is not my congressman. I have no idea how good of a job he does for his constituents. Nor have I seen any of the said lewd pictures of him.

Though I did hear that even more have shown up including one of him in a towel holding his crotch in the House of Representatives basement gym locker-room.  Likely he was giving the photographer or the intended recipient a message of “get a load of this” or “I got your committee, right here!” Frankly, it does not matter.

What does matter, at least to me, is the immense amount of valuable intellectual bandwidth and exhausting petty school yard name calling that is expended by the press and our government on matters such as this. Furthermore, I am disheartened at the continued old school thought that lewd pictures and their intent has anything to do with a politician’s inability to contribute to governing. Yes, if in fact a particular piece of evidence indicates we have a pedophile in our midst or other form of classic criminal actor, then out they must go. But I, for one, am much more comfortable having a real human being, with all their character assets and defects, than some Manchurian automaton or lifeless mouse that abstains from everything. Who is the better spiritual or religious counselor for a married couple, a celibate catholic priest or a married Jewish rabbi? Rod Serling would not answer this and neither will I. But what’s wrong with a few pictures in party hats and a passionate agenda or two? I am not afraid of a politician’s humanity. What I truly fear are those whose moral fiber and human nature are not as easily revealed. At least we have had a good chance to get to know quite a bit more about Mr. Weiner, Mr. Clinton, Mr. GW Bush and Mr. Rangel, to name just a few.

Certainly Bill Clinton’s rather liberal definition of sexual relations was uncomfortable and did indeed traverse the line of deceit as is evident by his subsequent impeachment and acquittal. But I was completely comfortable at the time knowing that the man who had control of all the nuclear weapons in the western hemisphere was not sexually all pent up. So Anthony might have a little internet addiction, or might like having pictures of him holding his crotch? George W used to be an alcoholic and still was able to quite effectively bumble many things completely sober. Many politicians at all levels are gay, old, young, white, black, male and female. Certainly these attributes might flavor a politician’s approach to governing. But isn’t that what we want? Was it not their “flavor” or their perspective on how things should be done the very reason we voted for them? Are we to toss out the entire tasty meal just because we have found one ingredient not to our liking or one, on its own, that is unacceptable? I cannot eat raw garlic. I avoid it in all the foods I can. But, from time to time, there is a dish whose taste electrifies my palette leaving me without a care that garlic was one of the voices in the beautiful harmony of the orchestral arrangement.

There is an age old saying that you do not really get to know someone until you live with them. So the real question is can we live with the various shortcomings and character defects of our politicians as part of their make up to ultimately do a good job? Is it at all possible that there is a congressman or congresswoman, senator or councilman, who actually has mal-intent towards their job or their constituency? Perhaps, there are. But until yet another character defect trips them up and exposes them, we must maintain good faith in our overall government that these truly corrupt individuals will either be weeded out or circumvented by due process, checks and balances.

I have great respect and reverence for our political system and government. It is the very fact that it can be flawed at the individual and group level that makes it so brilliant and so successful. A government for the people, by the people is, after all, run by people. So let us not squander the usefulness of our founding father’s constitutional engineering in future reconnaissance and self-healing mechanisms on some lewd photos. Let us rather let embarrassment or even a scarlet letter do their natural job so this congressman and all the
others that will succeed him can be truly judged by the performance of their duties in representing their communities and what they actually accomplish as a member of government.

So I’m tooling along in the Cooper the other day listening to whatever. All of a sudden my aging iPod Nano starts pumping The New Yorker podcast throughout the cavernous interior of my chariot. The subject matter was a look at Wagner’s epic Die Walkure. Even those who don’t know opera have heard this piece’s most famous excerpt, Ride of the Valkyries (Apocalypse Now, etc).

Richard Wagner, like many of the famous composers stuffed down my throat in music history class, was brilliant. Mozart, Beethoven, Bach. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. They gave Western harmony shape and form. They wrote some of the most influential notes ever to grace a staff. They changed the world as we know it and music will never be the same without them.

You know what I listen to whenever I have the chance? Not them.

I listen to Radiohead or Jay-Z. I take in some classic Steely Dan. I might even dial up some Sting if I’m feeling contemplative and stodgy. What I do not listen to is Wagner, Mozart or Beethoven. In fact, I wouldn’t be caught dead with an MP3 of Tchaikovsky’s 9th symphony if I worked for a company that made elevator music for tall buildings. I can’t stand the stuff. It doesn’t speak to me. It doesn’t elicit any emotion. I can’t identify with it.

“Oh dear!” they’ll say. “He’s uncultured. Uneducated. Uncouth!” Maybe I am. But I’m not alone.

Coffee is awesome. I love coffee.

Malcom Gladwell gave a talk at TED about the way people see themselves in relation to products. He gave an example of market research about coffee drinkers. He said, if you ask the average coffee drinker to describe their perfect cup ‘o joe, ninety percent of them will tell you they want a rich, complex Kenyan roast with a dark, malted color, espresso-like clarity and untouched by condiments as pedestrian as milk and sugar.

But when the researches looked into what people actually drink, it was weak, milky, coffee-flavored-water with enough sugar to induce a diabetic coma.

People want to believe “better” of themselves. They want to be the kind of person who listens to La Traviata while perched on a Louis XIV armchair reading de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. But visit them at home and you’ll find them listening to Beyonce while perched on an Ikea sofa-bed reading TV Guide. And ya know what? That’s ok.

It’s ok because people who listen to, sit on and read things they think they should be listening to, sitting on and reading instead of things they want to listen to, sit on and read usually turn out to be assholes. Whereas those who have the presence of mind and the strength of their convictions enough to admit that Phoenix, not Stravinsky, is the new high-art, go on to lead happy, fulfilled and culturally dynamic lives full of the pure joy that can only be induced by art that truly speaks to us.

So go ahead and drop that oily facade of superiority. Drink bland coffee, listen to bubble gum pop and read trashy romance novels. After all, I believe it was Cher from Clueless who corrected Heather when she quoted Hamlet who said, “to thine own self be true”.

Wise words. Feel free to leave some of your own in the comments.

-KJ

The landscape of Rain’s continued march to the top of the hill is chock full of data further indicating the ultimate demise of the desktop PC at Apple and other large manufacturers. While it has some interesting twists and turns regarding profitability versus volume on various hardware offerings from these giants, there are some relationships that are conspicuously missing or only lightly touched on.

One of these is profitability of a platform. What Apple has always done and is clearly continuing with the iPad and iPhone is creating and nurturing an entire platform. Much like HP printers, it was the ink they made their money on and that contributed the most to product loyalty (or imprisonment depending on one’s perspective). Though the iPad is certainly more fun and functional than the printer ink cartridge club, it is nevertheless the same thing. If Apple only makes about half the gross margin on the iPad as it does the Mac for an individual unit sale, what is the differential in the software sale? For after all, it is the application that makes the computing device useful, not the other way around.

The answer, ladies and gentlemen, is a lot of money. Herein lies the actual DNA of Apple’s ultimate plan to make its iPad the ink cartridge of creative content consumption. While making 40% on a computer is impressive, to make a living at it assumes the majority of users actually need a computer. Many, about 10 million in only a few months, are finding that the iPad or rather tablet platform is more than enough. With the advent of cloud computing and the fact that the majority of users both business and personal consume content rather than create it, the tablet is the new widget everyone will want and need. The day of the $500 desktop computer is all but over! It is estimated that 10% of desktop computer sales have already been cannibalized by the tablet.

This might sound on the surface as not boding well for Rain’s mission to make desktop computers its sole business. But for those of you that have been listening in on this subject, the exodus is here. Desktop computers are not disappearing, just the tier 1 manufacturers’ appeal to making them. Dell and HP will continue their atrophy from making desktops at any attractive level of price / performance. Unlike Apple that is actually using the iPad and Mac as a gateway drug to their app stores (brilliant, by the way!), Dell and HP do not have a software counterpart. While it is unclear what Dell and HP will do; HP is still in the throes of their board of directors walk out and Dell seems to be buying up storage companies and focusing on cloud computing. One thing is very clear; Desktops are not going to get much if any love from the CFOs and executive boards at any of these companies. Let us not forget the huge chasm of difference there can often be between margin percentages and margin dollars. Yes the iPad is less than the Mac in both at this point. But now that Apple is no longer giving 20% margin to their dealer channel (dealers must now use the Mac App Store to resell at an atrocious 6% to 10%), the profit of apps for both Mac and iPad/iPhone should be combined with their respective hardware. Be mindful that 65% of Apple’s gross sales for 2010 were from products that did not exist 3 years ago.

I imagine we will find that with this software sales overlay, the iPad will indeed outrun the Mac for margin dollars. Furthermore, Apple has deliberately and proactively all but alienated, if not completely prevented the dealer channel from selling Mac hardware and software. While I share Mr. Jobs’ frustration with the dealer channel, they are a large and powerful sales force that employ damn near 25% of our nation’s workforce. They cannot all be bad and certainly deserve and need to have a job. Apple laid off 10% of its own sales force last December. So clearly Apple is not creating jobs. And if we do not create jobs then how am I going to afford my iPad, iPhone or Mac? Yes, some of us are addicted and will once again rack up the credit card debt. But as Adam Smith and the rest of us that made it through 2009 and 2010 would advise that will not last for long.

Everyday Rain receives ever increasing inquiries and sales from users that are jumping off the Apple cart. Yes 350 million desktops were sold last year. Dell and HP and even Apple will not forget that. But, they have absolutely no cause or attraction whatsoever from almost every angle of business planning, to design a better, more powerful and price performing desktop. The revolution has already begun. Those 40% margins from Apple on Macs and the anemic 15% or less on HP and Dell desktops will end up becoming their toxic asset write offs of our banking bailout era. China’s economy is inflating despite its continued attempts to manipulate its currency. So how is Dell going to drop ship a $500 computer from China and still make any real profit with all these contradictory conditions? How is Apple going to maintain those 40% Mac margins with the ODMs in China and Taiwan both raising their prices and incurring higher per unit costs due to lower run rates?

Answer, get a Rain! Rain Computers are 100% designed, manufactured and supported in the United States and United Kingdom.

When we were kids, Keith Link and I used to hang out at a music store near his house called George’s Music. It was your standard fare, the walls lined with guitars, disgruntled musicians behind the counter wearing ties and feeling holier-than-thou, lessons in the back room. It was our Mecca, our candy store, our cheap thrill.

Keith always liked music. And since I liked everything that Keith liked, I liked music too. His picking up the guitar and convincing me to pick up bass was what ultimately led to my spending many years studying music, touring the world and haunting studios in the wee hours of the morning. But the love of music gear was not as related to the love of music as you might think.

Gear, sweet gear

For us, it went far beyond simply a tool of the trade. What we felt was pure lust for the shiny new objects that adorned the display cases at George’s. The Ibanez Saber, a guitar that looked way better than it sounded; that classic, orange distortion pedal from Boss; and the sublimely unreachable Paul Reed Smith whose two thousand dollar price tag may as well have been two million.

When we had outstayed our welcome at George’s, unceremoniously ejected from the show room as perennial tire-kickers (and for practicing our beginner version of Stairway To Heaven without invitation), we would retreat to our stash of gear-porn: the Musician’s Friend catalog. This was way back when before websites and eCommerce. The catalog would arrive to 3 million eager recipients who would then spend the next few hours pouring over each new addition, mentally calculating their total spend and which life essentials could be jettisoned to enable it.

They grow up so fast, don’t they?

Last week we welcomed Musician’s Friend to the Rain family. A quick search on their website gives way to a tour of our shiny new Rain audio computers amidst a mountain of effects pedals, drool-worthy guitars and other big-boy toys fetishized by the next generation of aspiring gear hounds.

I feel kind of warm and fuzzy about it. Though I’m not ready to break out bongos and finger-cymbals for a rousing version of Kumbaya, I do have to smile at the idea of today’s young Keiths and Kevins pouring over the website, adding their dream items to a digital wish list that embodies the fantasies of a rock star studio. And perhaps in the shopping cart, between an American Strat and a Cry Baby Wah-Wah reissue, sits a Rain computer ready to empower a torrent of creative energy that will give birth to the next Nirvana.

I’m not a psychologist

… but if I was, I would specialize in the pursuit of discovering why we desire new toys so intensely. My cellphone is brand new and I recall ripping the box open like a kid on Christmas morning when it arrived. But every time I read a blog post about a new phone, I’m ready to replace mine at the drop of a hat. This knowing full well that the heroin-like high of my new acquisition will wear off the second I catch wind of the next best thing.

It’s like this for cars, for guitars, for clothes and for computers – for everyone no matter what they tell you. And the effect is always the same. The joy of ownership consistently pales in comparison to the relentless pursuit of novelty.

Is it human nature? Is there something inside of us that demands this drug? Perhaps it’s the same inclination to better ourselves, move up the ladder of success, build a better mousetrap. Maybe this is the price we pay for being a progressive species focused, by and large, on forward motion and change in the name of transcendence.

Of course, it could be mere entertainment – the thrill of the hunt, if you will. The game of hypothesizing the ultimate acquisition followed by a scientific experiment of trial and error, the uncovering of empirical data from Consumer Reports, user reviews and the fondling of one’s obsession in the showroom, like Keith and I all those years ago at George’s Music.

I don’t have the answers and I’m not in pursuit of the cure. I’m too busy living the disease in the most entertaining way. And as always, I invite your thoughts on the subject. Feel free to share the details of your deepest darkest gear fetish. You’re in good company.

-KJ