Social & Political Issues – Page 21

Gold Standard of Artistic Courage: RIP Adam Yauch (MCA)

I remember my 9-year-old daughter going wild to Beastie Boys' "Sabotage." "It's such a rush," she said. Yes, it was. It still is all these years later.

Three white dudes from Brooklyn becoming one of the most important hip-hop acts of all time, helping rap to become a mainstream art – that was some courageous feat! And, my God, they were so good! It's no wonder Madonna, always with impeccable sense for commercial success, had them touring with her throughout 1985.

The most amazing part of the Beastie Boys' history to me, though, is the fact that they never lost themselves and each other. Entering the roughest and toughest area of the music industry did not change their core values. And they never broke up. I cannot say it better than MCA himself did in "Intergalactic":

"Well I gotta keep it going, keep it going full steam
Too sweet to be sour too nice to be mean
Well on the tough guy style I'm not too keen
Try to change the world, I'mma plot and scheme"

It's not surprising that when it came to putting his riches to work, one of Adam's outlets was his company Oscilloscope Pictures responsible for distribution of such brave cinematic projects as "Wendy and Lucy," "The Messenger," "The Exploding Girl," "Howl," "Exit through the Gift Shop," and "We Need to Talk about Kevin." All commercially unsuccessful, but highly important films.

Don't be surprised – as a career financial professional with a soul, I can expertly advise you that it's not all about money. In the long-run, there are far more valuable returns on investments. It is my learned opinion that in the face of terminal decease, no amounts of cash matter. MCA couldn't use it to save himself, nor could he take it with him. Yet, the music, the movies – they will remain. They will continue making impact on other people's lives. And for that we thank you, Adam. Rest in peace – you've earned it.

Sometimes You Get Lucky and See a Spark of Intelligence

I always complain about the general population's low level of intelligence heightened by inertia and group mentality. The gray matter deficit upsets me in its many manifestations: the music that tops the charts (Justin Bieber!), the books that become uber-bestsellers ("Fifty Shades of Grey," judging by the synopsis, didn't really stray too far from 1919 "The Sheik"), the movies that break box-office records ("Pirates of the Caribbean, part XX"), the TV shows that attract most viewers (American Idol – over 6 million watching every airing!), the celebrities who get the most hype (Angelina Jolie, who has not shown us a glimpse of decent acting since 2001 "Original Sin"), etc. Even dear to my heart nerdy world of independent filmmaking is degrading (more about this in another post). Some say, "Stop oppressing people with your judgements! Why do you care anyway?"

I'll tell you, why I care. Only a small group of people can construct their lives in isolation from the world. The rest of us are forced to interact with surrounding individuals, frequently in a very direct manner. The general population is where those unbearable customer service representatives come from, those waiters who screw up your orders, those cab drivers who don't know where to go, those doctors who throw random diagnosis at you and prescribe the most expensive procedures, and so on, and so forth.

Most importantly for the frustrated CFO, this murky pond spews out the job applicants as well as auditors, field examiners, bankers, investors, etc. – people that have an impact on our professional lives. Most are so dull and limited, dealing with them quickly turns an intelligent and composed CFO into the frustrated one.

Once in a blue moon, though, you may get lucky – the wave of professional activities may land on your shore someone with a spark of genuine intelligence in his or her eyes.

I have a client with a trade finance line provided by one of the major banks. Among lender's requirements are periodic field exams of the client's books and records. All banks conduct these reviews from time to time. That doesn't mean, however, that they employ departments full of highly-paid auditors. Instead, they outsource and make the clients bear the cost. There are large and small consulting companies and CPA firms that have built their practices specializing in this type of work.

I've helped this particular client to go through their first field exam. The examiner flew to New York from a medium-size firm in Chicago. My expectations were pessimistic (what else is new?): I was preparing myself for days of explanations about the nature of the business, the accounting principles and pronouncements that apply, the international trade conventions, etc.

But this guy was different. Five minutes after the introductions I knew this was a kindred spirit: someone who is not just smart, intellectually quick, logical, and absorbent, but also a person with the same high standards for the quality of work as I have; someone who doesn't allow garbage to come off his desk. Just like me, he has developed his own analytical tools and instruments that set him apart from everybody else.

Working with him was a gift, an unexpected pleasure. In 3.5 days we have completed the field exercise. Of course, both of us understood that such meeting of professional minds is quite rare, so we felt compelled to share our future aspirations. I genuinely hope that our paths cross again soon.

When he concluded his work and was ready to leave my client's office, I asked him how many other associates in his firm were as good as he was. He said, "Just one other guy." And here you have it, ladies and gentlemen, the real-life statistics on the proportion of professional intelligence in the general pool of employees: 2 to 58, or 3%.

Self-Deprecating Ageism, or Impressions From Tool Concert

When iconic bands like Tool go on tours the good tickets land onto scalping sites almost instantaneously. Well, a middle-aged CFO with uber-eclectic cultural tastes is used to it: the same is true for Radiohead, Kanye West, The Cure, Wilco, Florence and the Machine, etc., and The Met charges scalping prices in its own box office. The biggest concern is handling the crowd: you want to be on the floor, but you are too old to fight off the crashing violent tendencies and the crowd-surfing of the young fans. It's fine to be in the front row of the GA pit at the Radiohead concert as there is no pushing and shoving, but the Tool audience may get carried away in the pit.

So, when fate brings an assigned-seat concert (the audience rocks standing close to their ticketed seats) and as near as East Rutherford, NJ (Tool have not given a full performance in NYC since 2006), you thank the blessed benefactor for the floor tickets and go. After all, who knows if you can summon the courage for the next time.

I guess, the front-man, Mr. Maynard James Keenan, who is mere 3 years younger than me, for a hot second felt middle-aged as well. The sentiment was rather of the nostalgic than the physical nature: he looked as robust as ever and his voice did not loose an iota of its incredible beauty and strength. But this is what happens: you get to a place and a memory of seeing Van Halen there 25 years ago hits you – fuck, I've been alive for quite some time already.

So, Maynard addressed the audience as if it consisted 100% of younglings born before his experience of the band with the most #1 hits on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart. This was absolutely unjustified – to my quick eye the distribution of attendees was pretty much even over a broad spectrum of age groups, from 19 to mid-50's, with slightly higher density of late 20s to early 30s. But as I said, he felt like it, so he promised us that the band will "try" to perform some tracks that they have not touched for some time… as long as they "don't forget" what they are supposed to do, because they "are old". "So," he said, "if you see us wondering away in search of mashed potatoes…"

This made me laugh. Not because it was funny (Maynard is capable of better jokes), but because it reminded of me of myself always telling younger people how "the most brilliant I've ever been was at the age of 25-27, when I was writing my dissertation," and how "I used to have a near-photographic memory, but it's not the same anymore," and how "when you get older, the expertise replaces originality," and so on and so forth.

Pretty much the same coquettish crap that Maynard was trying to feed us right before him and his band-mates pulled off a set to die for, a performance one can never forget (there was a woman next to us who said that she saw Tool eighteen times and this was THE BEST CONCERT EVER!). Indeed, they were rocking like fucking hell, testing the reality and the nature of humanity with their existential lyrics and mind-blowing visuals. Their force transcended all ages; the generations converged and disappeared, chanting in unison the haunting lyrics of "Forty-six & 2" and "Aenema."

You know what? We, boys and girls born in the 60s, the so-called Generation X – the first generation conceived with The Beatles and The Stones playing in the background, potty-trained with the Pink Floyd's accompaniment and hit over the head by puberty while Led Zeppelin was hitting the Big Time, we should really stop this self-deprecating bullshit.

Nobody bought Maynard's "old-age" tirade, just like nobody buys my "I am not the same" crap. I just wrote a book full of novel ideas, I still enter companies and within a few weeks uncover their weaknesses, embarking on solving their problems and quickly coming up with solutions.

Is anybody going to think of Quentin Tarantino (1963) or Richard Linklater (1960) as "middle-aged" directors? How about Eddie Vedder (1964) or Thom Yorke (1968), would we qualify them as "middle-aged" rockers? If the beloved Kurt Cobain (1967) did not act on his disdain for human existence and kill himself at the age of 27, would we think of him as "old" now? C'mon, his fucking widow (1964) still acts like a juvenile delinquent. I can go on and on.

For better or worth, we are made differently. We count our years and we think, "Oh, I should be changing," but we are not getting "old" and we don't want to. And I don't think we will. 25 years from now, if the world is still in one piece, I intend to be at a Tool concert and expect Maynard to rock his hardest ever.

SOPA, PIPA and “CFO Techniques”

The inner conflict many intelligent people experience over Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA), is an old problem for me. For many years before the pharmaceutical and media lobbies brought the issue of proprietary rights infringement in the Internet age to Washington DC, I've been torn between two firm believes of mine: (1) that content creators (writers, musicians, artists, designers, etc.) are entitled to get paid whenever their creative products are used for commercial purposes (i.e. to make money), and (2) that the information available on the Internet cannot be restricted by any means.

That's why more than 10 years ago, I thought of Napster as a violator of musicians' rights to financially benefit from their products. It was obvious to me that the whole purpose of the "file-sharing service" was Sean Parker's publicity stunt to show off the Fanning brothers' technological platform with a purpose of selling it and profiting from it (which is exactly what happened).

YouTube, whose owners obviously always intended to capitalize on the advertising, is also at fault when it lets the users to upload copyrighted material without paying the content owners royalty out of their revenues. On the other hand, I don't see anything wrong with YouTube being a promotional portal for young artists, musicians, filmmakers, and such (including the crazy exhibitionists catering to voyeurs), who upload their own creations knowingly in hopes of receiving the tangible benefits of being noticed.

Of course, the most conflicting entity is Google. On one hand, we cannot exist without their search engine (I am well aware that there are geeky alternatives out there, but let's face it – Google dominates); on the other hand, when it comes to the Internet advertising they are the closest example of a monopoly we've got in our screwed up economy. Moreover, Google attains its riches by using every single one of us, the information-seeking users. Ultimately, it's in their interests to tag counterfeiters and bootleggers, because users are looking for them. And I guess they know that their hands are not exactly clean. Why else would they settle with the Department of Justice to pay $500 million for allowing Canadian Pharmacies' advertisement?

Presently the issue of the online copyright infringement hits very close to home for me. A bunch of unlicensed eBook-hacking sites are offering "CFO Techniques" downloads for free. Neither me nor my publisher is getting a single penny out of this, while the sites' owners get advertising income, revenues on sales of their users' information, and ability to pollute the hapless freeloaders' computers with the spyware invisibly attached to the plug-ins required for viewing the books. They profit unfairly using MY PRODUCT. And that's not fair.

Still, even this wouldn't force me to support the half-assed anti-constitutional laws like SOPA and PIPA. Why? Because if these laws are passed, I could go to jail for offering my readers a clip from "So, I Married an Axe Murderer" within my post about The Best Boss in Cinematic History , even though I derive no material benefits from this blog (none at all). I'd rather people steal my shit than go along with freedom of speech violations in the name of copyrights protection.

Yet, I am all for fighting piracy in an intelligent way that doesn't take our civil liberties away. And the "financial benefit" criteria seems to my CFO mind like a sensible approach. If a site takes any form of payments or generates advertising revenue through deliberate peddling (not just illustrative usage) of unlicensed and unpaid for content, the enablers of payment processing and advertising portals should stop providing their services to this site. This would be not much different than YouTube's actions under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA): they get a notice and remove the violating content.

Money is the key. I always said that the best way to fight terrorism is going after the financial sources. The now supposedly dead Osama Bin Laden without his multimillion wealth would've been just a thug on the street. Facebook without the advertisement revenue would be just a well-designed electronic hangout with no prospects for an IPO (expected in May this year).

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: