Ike’s Love of Small Places
Isaac sure likes to crawl into boxes and bags. It’s very consistent — if you empty out a box or bag, Ike climbs inside it at the first opportunity. Moving into a new house has kept him amused for hours …
Rambling from Redmond
OK, here’s my first post from my desk in Redmond. But I’m going to keep it short because I’ve got a stack of reading/studying material to focus on, lots of office/computer setup chores to finish, a ton of email to get organized, various software to install and configure, and only a couple hours left before I’m heading over to Pro Sports Club, one of Microsoft’s best perks. I came in at 7:00 this morning, and by noon my to-do list was a lot longer than it was when I got here. Cool.
I’m still much too new to Microsoft to have anything insightful to say about the experience, but I’ll summarize my experience so far like this: lots of positives and no negatives. The intelligence and energy level around here is great, and although I’m sure I’ll eventually run into some jerks, I haven’t had the misfortune yet.
I read a cool memo from Ray Ozzie this morning, and I thought “gee, I know a few people who would enjoy that, but it’s Microsoft Confidential so I can’t share it.” But then I learned, through Scoble’s blog, that Dave Winer has already posted the memo online. Check it out. It’s an exciting time to be joing this team, and I love the way everyone here seems to be questioning the business model of the past and debating the model for the future. The view that Microsoft “just doesn’t get it about the the future of computing” is just as accurate — and just as funny — right now as it was in 1995 when pundits were predicting that the internet would put Microsoft out of business. Yeah, that sure happened.
Hmm, I guess that wasn’t so short. More later, after I get my new work life in order. (Or this weekend, whichever comes first.)
Paul McCartney at Key Arena
Boy, the cost of living is sure a lot higher in Seattle than in Spokane. I’ve only lived here for about 24 hours now, and have already paid $250 for a concert ticket. Ouch.
But it was worth it. Not for the show, really; more on that below. But it was a chance to do something with all of my brothers. The last time we all did something together was back in 2001 when we rented a big power boat and spread Dad’s ashes in the San Juan Islands. This time around, as then, Ken drove like the high-energy maniac he is; the trip through the Rainier Valley in his pickup, after I forgot the tickets and we had to go back for them, was priceless. I had forgotten how much I enjoy his driving. Seriously — living in Spokane, where everyone drives so politely, I thought I’d have to return to India to see this style of city driving.
Anyway, Ken provided the transportation thrills, Brad set the event up, and Greg picked up the tab with a little help from me. Our usual division of labor.
Oh yeah, the show. Well, it’s not that Paul McCartney isn’t a great musican who has written dozens of great songs. Of course he is. And it’s not that the band sucked; of course they didn’t. Rusty Anderson, the guitar player who looks like a cross between Trent Reznor and Ben Stiller, was especially impressive, as was the big goateed drummer (Abe something).
The problem was Paul himself. Not his playing and singing — for a guy in his 60’s, or a guy of any age, his chops and voice were great. But there was never any energy at all, and never any crowd dynamics that extended for more than exactly one song. It was like three dozen mini-concerts, one song each, and in between each of them (every damn time) Paul felt it was best to stop, talk to the crowd, tell a story, tell a joke, or do whatever else it took to absolutely kill any momentum they had built. Then, after the crowd was cooled off and all those screaming grandmothers stopped shaking their butts and collapsed back in their seats, he’d start it up again, building some energy for two or three minutes (many of the songs were abridged versions) before letting it die again.
Paul could learn a thing or two from our friends in the Cronkites, Spokane’s best bar band. When you can’t get by on name recognition alone, reading the crowd and playing to the crowd in an interactive manner is the only way to get them cheering and dancing. Yes, you’re Sir Paul Freaking McCartney, but couldn’t you just once in three hours launch into another song without giving a speech? Hell, I’ve seen bands play even more than two songs in a row without a break, and it seems to work pretty well for them.
Some of the stories were good, actually, there were just too many of them. I enjoyed hearing of how his piano-player father had told him, after he wrote “She Loves Me (Yeah, Yeah, Yeah)” that “there are too many Americanisms already, can’t you just sing yes, yes, yes instead?” Paul, like so many great men, wisely ignored his father’s well-intentioned advice.
There was no opening band, but there was some guy with a fake turntable setup writhing around in a face mask to a hip-hop mix of some of Paul’s best-known melodies. That went WAY too long. Then, when the crowd thought the show was finally going to start, it was time for a methodical plodding video documentary of Paul’s life, starting with the birth certificate, through every band he played in, and on and on and on. Sir Paul finally hit the stage, and after the opening number my brother Greg — a lifelong Paul McCartney fan — didn’t clap and said “after that 40-minute self-indulgent intro, he’s going to have to do a little more than that to get me excited.” Looking around the crowd, I think there were a few thousand other people who felt the same.
But it was fun, and there were lots of great musical moments even if the whole was less than the sum of the parts. And we even called Mom from the show, just to let her know her four sons could still fit their massive egos and bodies into four adjacent seats. Hi Mom!
