5 a.m.

I read somewhere that population scientists consider a generation to be 25 years - 100 years of age separate four generations. That means that my hundred year old great grandmother is at least 3 generations away from me.

It sure doesn't feel like my dad is 2 away or my mom is 1. We are all coetaneous.

Yet it's the simple things that give it away. A former student of mine told me yesterday that sophomores in high school today had never heard of backstreet boys or the spice girls. Such classical landmarks in the life of every single college student enrolled in the pop western world today are a thing of legend to the youngsters of today.

So it's 5 am (really 2pm here) in Vladivostok and I'm ever nearer to the mature and ripe age of whenever we grow up.

It's strange that the adults of yesterday always told us that the future belonged to our generation. Well our generation is now and the future is still in the future - we're like the horse chasing the carrot hanging from the carriage driver's fishing stick. The distance between point A and B never changes locally though it moves across the world universally.

I'm not trying to be deep. I'm going for nerdy.

So bear with me as I use Swarley's famous words and suit up.

I hope that the generations to come appreciate Charles Aznavour, the original Ocean's 11 and Oscar Wilde's rant on how all art is useless - the prologue to arguably one of his landmark works. I hope they grow up with landmark art that doesn't involve a fraternal communion of Disneyland and network TV - maybe that's snobbish.

Apathy is growing everywhere but the most dangerous places. Long gone are the days where generations would movilize around the world over an idea or a picture. Long gone are the days where generations would see leaders rise to the height of ideal only to be toppled over by their own sense of omnipotence - I'm talking about Elvis and Cobain. Long gone are the days where generations care about anything other than their localized existence; the bubble.

Don't give me the story of award winning NPOs and NGOs rising around the world along with grass-root organizations and sustainable development students volunteering at this or that group with the words "Without Borders" attached to their back. Props on the street cred.

Talk to me about an individual looking to change the world for good in one grand sweep.

Where's Ender when you need him?

Deal me in

I've been told I'm growing dark and brooding. It's probably due to the sharp contrast of stormy weather and sunny sprees characteristic of both the Philly area and the Black Forest in Germany.

In high school I once played upwards of 5,000 hands of blackjack to determine with probabilistic incertitude that something may or may not have been true. It was then that I learned the power of the words "I'll stay" as opposed to "Peace brah" as well as card counting - in one of its most basic forms. The former is the important part of the message.

The basic premise was probably devised by a 1st grader being taught sums with big numbers (10+11). Look! 21 looks like I'm counting backwards from 2.

Or maybe it was a second grader who realized that having 3 groups of 7 cats would yield the same total as 7 stacks of 3 cookies.

Or (and here is where we skip a couple years of useless education focused on things like Geography - just in case someone discovered a new route to the Indies)  maybe it was a 5th grader being taught about primes.

I realize that I'm leaving out the possibility of a religious man focusing on the holy trinity that 3 is and the idea of a 7th heaven as made popular by a group of Brothers with a warning sign.

Perhaps a strapping young man learning the mathematical background of computer sciences combined his knowledge of proofs with the RSA breaking code algorithm. Visualizing Euler and the Chinese Remainder theory in the same mouthful as a piece of spicy tuna is crammed down his gullet he screamed Eureka!

Then again that man who rides the bicycle on the back of cards probably had an R&D team looking for uses of laminated cards that didn't involve slicing bananas at a distance or performing at a low rent version of Gob's (with his sidekick Franklin of course) THE MAGIC Show.

Maybe it was a lonely farmer in the middle of Indiana yelling angrily at his parents that no matter how hard he tried the Chicken was always getting dinner.

All the while the rain is pouring but and I'm shaking my lucky snake eyes hoping for a warm table.

Who's looking for a whale?

Half-life

I wonder what my half-life would be if I were a chemical compound. What the name of my flagship game would be if I were a video game company. What my real life would look like separate from a Second life account.

In a literal sense half-life could be 50 years if we assume the first world will carry me all the way to a hundred. The genes are on my side but the exhaustion of living might not be.

In a true sense I'll define it as the time before someone grows tired of you in a short period of time.

Imagine this for the scene of a greek dramedy:

Name tage: Dr. Montalban
Profession: Space Cowboy/Dr./I take care of the child I am raising on my own
Hobbies? Descartes, Magritte and French enology.

In and out. Like the burger joint, except rather than a 30 minute wait it's more a really short eternity separated by a little gong knocked unceremoniously every four minutes. A bevy of girls dressed to impress in a variety of out-of-season colors and styles look charming and pretty from afar. The guys, on the other side of the bar all look the same - button down and dark jeans - as they hold a drink and fake a distant far-away-from-here type look.

And we start.

4 minutes to make an impression and the hardest job interview I've ever had rolls around. I want to seem cool and aloof but interesting enough to have them begging with questions. Mention my travels or my small collection of french wines? Should I hint at the idea of a family and a picket fence or derisively refer to that fantasy as part of my larger view on the life, ironic?

The thought of just being myself briefly crosses my mind. Ha!

Her eyes wander away from her and I make one last ditch attempt - I'm not afraid to fall in love. Thinking that's what all of them want to hear. And I'd promised myself I'd get hopped up enough to avoid my nasty habit of thinking. I'm on the patch and everything and it still doesn't help. She looks at me giving me a final appraisal and I feel like the admiral's antiques. She smiles politely as her eyes take on a beautiful glaze.

Hello half life.

Out of Business

A sign should have gone up weeks ago

SALE! While supplies last! Going out of Business! SALE! SALE! SALE!

I think I'm going out of the business I've thrived in so much over the last 20 years. It wasn't a particular product I was hocking or a particular service - it was an experience. A truly mutually beneficial agreement of 50/50 profit split - a shell corporation consisting of offshore bank accounts with loads of emotional funds. For the longest part I was passionate about this business, the industry. It afforded me insights and made me privy to information that those learning how to value companies or understand organizational design only wish they could have.

I suppose that's why business school and I turned out to be a great fit tho.

Disclaimer (because they're necessary and I like them): To all of those involved in my business right now - our contract stands. However implicit it may be. I honor the signed pieces of imaginary paper because times have been both good and bad, awkward and pleasant - and I hope to keep having those times. The terms of engagement shall remain.

I'm going to be like the Customer Service branch of a Car brand going out of business. I won't produce or sell new cars anymore (because we were in the red for too long and Chapter 7 came in and killed us) but I'll continue to fix incidental problems of the cars I have on the road.

I'm just sick and tired of chasing bad money with more money. I'm exhausted of starting out a lucrative real estate investment only to have it turn into your run-o'-the-mill commercial paper transaction. You know what I mean?

If you don't here's an illustrative example that the characters in Alcott's books would have correctly identified as an allegory.

In Chemistry class we'd start out with a collection of vials and test tube thingies with pretty liquids in a rainbow of colors. My favorites were the clear ones that hid their true identity behind a thin veneer of science that our teacher simply describes as "upper level chemistry". NaOH + HCl would start out like this but when mixed the level of clarity would vanish instantly as one hit the other - precipitating into a mixed state I hadn't expected.

The thing I've realized is that in business you can't always keep going forward. No matter how good the returns - growth for the sake of growth is a dangerous path to travel. That's why I'm stopping for a while, reassessing strengths and weaknesses and evaluating the environment with a simple SWOT analysis.

Call it restructuring.

Of two minds

One of them sat in class as a Sex Ed. teacher would extoll the virtues of SAFE SEX. There were bananas, condoms bought by our friends mom and a whole lot of graphic pictures and stories. I was brought up in a catholic country with separation of church and state and a laic education.

The other mind is the one that leads to Oasis's Morning Glory or Ryan Reynolds' now famous "It's the morning...". The other mind doesn't stop to think as I touch the tingly bare flesh of a neck's nape.

I'd like to say it's the compounded effect of Coldplay playing in the background, the soft and rough feel of a raw cotton bed sheet and the warm body on top.

Actually, it's probably that.

The images daguerreotyped into my mind by my education become blotted black ink images meant to comprehend the human mind. I read a book on sexual diseases written by my father. The bee and flower talk doesn't get any more technical than that.

Looking back I realize it's a Jekyll and Hyde story and the unbearable lightness of being...bullish.

That sweet tantalizing moment that gives life a correct interpretation manages to leave a man (and a woman?) helpless. Think of a blank slate ready to receive whatever may come.

Funny what the brain thinks about in the middle of the day.

Golden rings and turtle doves

Aboriginal civilizations around the globe historically used the psychotropic effects of wildlife (brightly colored frogs) to connect with the spirits/seek answers/reach enlightenment. The French called it l'heure verte which allowed for much needed Bohemia. The Inca people used a subtle tea to make a stand against the great outdoors. And here the lack of reference to the Middle East and hashish marks Eurocentric-Americanized problems of our education.

Back on track.

In Asia it digressed into dens. In Colombia it became a booming business using Mexico as customs. And in the culture I currently find myself immersed in, it became a tradition of stands, little johns screaming shots and a chalice full of Upton's jungle juice.

Perhaps that's why I've garnered a fair bit of understanding over the last 20 years.

I've never been afraid to get my heart broken. I'm always looking for that silly little feeling of awkward nervousness talking to a girl I find particularly attractive. Sometimes it's a quirky comment which falls in line with my own idiosyncratic sense of self. Imagine someone who gets the reference to a pop culture movie and a classic piece of Spanish literature in the sentence. It leaves things up in the air.

Oh, and she catches the one in the last sentence too.

It scares me to think that just like in economics, the marginal cost of little piece of brilliant self-awareness will continue to increase exponentially as my life progresses. A scary thought - one that makes me wish I hadn't wasted so much time understanding that the reflection on the water wasn't me drowning or that coffee doesn't magically taste better when you get older - you simply need it and get used to it.

This weekend knowledge was given to me. "We [women] don't understand men". She meant the actions of men.

At least we're all even.

Obsessing

I've been away for a while.

And it has to do with my obsessive and addictive personality. People crave it all the time.
Ha! See what I did there?

I've been reading Ariely, learning about deception training and going through my insurance policy. I've been obsessing about lying. The idea of catching the slightest sigh of relieve, jumping at a proof of innocence or the up(down)swing of lips is something I'm quickly discovering to be a passion.

I'm passionate about understanding people, meeting people and figuring out what makes them tick. More often than not it's a coil mechanism that is both self-winding and solar with both digital and analog display.

There's a(several) reason(s) I'd never do South Florida nose candy.

But I digress - the problem is that the problem isn't selective. It's not just for overachieving, playing squash or attempting to stay up for 13 days in a row. Though the latter is more fatal than I initially thought.

I can't stand not being able to get a read on a person. To think that the girl in front of me is happy when instead she's burning up with the desire to sprint down the block and buy a cup of water (pronounced wuter) ice. Or that the casual dribbling of food down her chin is in fact not proof of how comfortable she is with herself but of a nervousness that she can't quite explain to herself.

Maybe what actually bothers me is the incredibly cute and almost to well-placed use of the "shit"*2.

I reason that maybe that was the one acceptable curse word - other than Crucio - at home for her, or maybe it's that she knows that the high pitched inflection she gives it makes it everything but crass - all of it an adorable sass.

The waitress might come over and wave her wand of magically awkward silence as I sit there wondering what's actually happening, letting my mind race as I nervously reach for the water hoping to catch something in your reflection. And I don't know what it is I expect, a wink? a playful jab to the gut? maybe I hope to see you play with your hair? I just need a sign.

And shit just got theological.

But not really, it's the male psyche. People talk about signals, decoding them, sending them. But they're a confusing tapestry - 19th century, battlefield, Napoleon rides in to an awaiting Josie - of misunderstood truths and are equal parts reality and fiction.

I'll keep reading.

Verified by a confessor

I once convinced an MD that I had an inherited nervous tick that every now and then led to the bridge of my nose bleeding. I also told him (and a litany of sweet and patient nurses) that my life long dream had been to become a doctor so I could help others.

I don't have that nervous tick and though my family is made up of doctors the hyppocratic oath never beckoned me from its streetlight corner.

Politicians might call it massaging the truth, some convince themselves that they are merely fixing the truth - probably because it has the annoying of breaking down - and there are those who proudly display their lies as trophies.

PR people.

Though this is unfair to the PR people in it for the right reasons. It also unfair to fail to mention the marketers that told us smoking was cool, that placed brief snapshots of deserts in pepsi ads to make us drink more and the little kid who broke a mug but says he doesn't know whodunnit.

It takes a skill that only few develop to their max potential. The ability to layer ever-more complicated versions of reality in a beautifully stacked house of cards is a skill available only to kings. To hide our ace and King suited from those around us while spinning tails about floating mountains and blue people that live in a mushroom.

Sometimes it's as easy as saying no when the answer is yes. Or picture a toll road made of ghosts where there allegory of lying is illustrated with a fork in the road.

What's best is when they strike unseen. Like a shiv pulled out in the middle of a prison food fight.

The reaction goes...wait! what? she said WHAT? About who? With that!? Seriously?

A feeling of disgust and revulsion ensues. In my mind I struggle to come up with an appropriate adjective or noun to express the lightheaded feeling and empty gut sensation. An expletive fills in the void and I go about like the gatherer in the hunter/gatherer relationship of the stone age - gathering information from the grapevines.

It's like finding out that glass slippers don't actually exist or that the beast usually never gets the beauty.

See ill.

Consider a series

I woke up jealous this morning. Wishing I could be as clever, as biting and as insightful as what I saw last night.

Called a project - the projects, I saw a family bare itself in a way that the paid hicks on Jerry Springer can only dream of doing. Maury wishes he had a story as real as the one slammed last night. The classical writer of our other time wished they could develop metaphors like they did. Gently threading black fibers across the white, yellow, red, and brown cloth of their existence they were brilliant.

I wish I had that shotgun of a voice.
Or a smile so wide it needs extra space on that face.

I'm trapped inside the flatness of my voice on a screen. Punctuation and grammar are my mean little siblings robbing me of that sweet baritone falsetto I like to pretend I have. Robbing me of the stance I could have and the explosion I want to make.

I wish I could see from within.

We're a little similar but we're very different. I see the stars as women. One of them saw that as well. The difference? He noticed that the stars are beautiful and brilliant but they also die along and no one gives a damn because they're so fucking far away.

And one of them seemed indifferent. Cooly confident that her voice would carry the subtle and penetrating qualities  of the phrases she had for so long worked on.

They sang lyrics without music.

Red light, white light, black out. A tear robbed from the audience as they open up to a crow of strangers and I'm wondering not how but why they do it. What compels them to crack open the book that is their mind and read out loud their deepest darkest thoughts and fears and pains and happy stories.

Thank you.