MJDAOG

It's over. Barack Obama is going to win. You heard it here first. I started following and supporting his candidacy back in December 2007 and have been glued to the news all year long, watching him take on the Clinton and Republican machines and shrugging them off with class and style the whole way. I've been so inspired by this man. I can't wait until 11/4, to hear John McCain concede, and to run outside and get drunk all night and feel proud to be American for the first time in a while.

With 25 days to go, the polls have Obama ahead by 5.6 points in the national poll and ahead in 7 of the 8 battleground states still in play, of which he only needs to win 1 to take the White House. His favorables are up. John McCain's are down. Barack and Joe Biden have won all 3 of the debates that have taken place thusfar. Everything is starting to point to an Obama landslide, with very little time left for things to change meaningfully.

Just Win One

Right now Barack has 264 electoral votes looking solid. He only needs 270 to win, meaning he needs to win 1 of the 8 final battleground states still up for grabs.  From West to East, they are Nevada, Colorado, Missouri, Indiana, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida. George Bush won all 8 of these in both 2000 and 2004, but the polls currently show Obama ahead in all of them except Indiana. Obama only needs to win ONE of these 8 to win the presidency. I hope it's my home state of Colorado that puts him over the top.

A Silver Lining In the Economic Meltdown

More than anything else, Obama's surge in the past 3 weeks is due to an external force- the current economic crisis that has caused more than 69% of Americans to cite the economy as their #1 issue in this election. The perception, whether real or imagined, that John McCain is an extension of the last 8 years of economic policy has created a political landscape where it's almost impossible for him to win. By default, Obama is the beneficiary. You won't hear me complaining.

The Only Thing That Keeps Me Up At Night

There's still 1% of me that worries that a country that was able to elect George Bush TWICE is still capable of letting latent intolerance seep into their vote. Should we worry that a meaningful number of people are saying one thing in public to seem tolerant, but when they're alone in an anonymous voting booth, they'll suddenly feel less comfortable casting their vote for a black man? (exhale) I know I'm wrong on this... I better be.

I'm starting a new party this Friday called Genius Steals.  Jon and I will be DJing at Arrow Bar on 6th and A, using our new Scratch Live setup.  No fancy artwork or flyers yet, as this is all being thrown together rather hastily.

The party will be one Friday a month.  Hope to see you there!

This seemed appropriate today...

I'm no finance wiz but I'm also not totally clueless about the market, and when I saw that the bailout hadn't passed the House this afternoon I became legitimately concerned for the first time in this whole mess. From everything I've read, and everything I understand, there's a consensus among both parties that we have to do something as soon as possible to keep credit flowing in the US economy. The fact that both sides agree that we need to take action makes today's failure to pass the bill all that more frustrating, as it would seem that partisan politics is to blame for the hold up on this time sensitive issue. To fail to act by the end of this week could potentially lead to a depression, as credit will freeze up and credit isn't something you can just turn on and off... once it's off, it's going to stay off for a while, and US companies are going to have to downsize to compensate.

I spent most of the afternoon thinking about how this mess is all likely to affect me and my friends, and after talking to my Dad and a couple other people I trust I've come up with a few thoughts.

The Good:

1. No matter how bad this gets in the next 12-24 months, I'm only 28 years old, have a great job, and 30 years of earning power ahead of me. My investments aren't overexposed to this and will likely weather the storm. So all in all, any downturn right now isn't really going to affect me in the long term- I'll be fine and my friends will be fine too.
   
2. There will likely be great opportunities in the next 24 months to invest near the bottom of the financial services, housing, and insurance sectors. Assuming the US economy cycles back, as I'm confident it will, the people who use this downturn as an opportunity to get in low in some industries that have gotten killed lately will enjoy the rebound.
3. In particular, I wonder if there will be a dip in the NYC housing market that will allow me and a lot of my friends, who may be looking to purchase first homes in the next couple years, to get a good deal on a house. That's assuming we can get a loan in a credit tight market, but I think most of us have pretty bitchin' credit so we should be fine.

The Bad:

1. This is likely to adversely affect my adopted hometown of NYC more than any other place on the planet. I feel bad for a lot of my friends who work in finance who have seen their jobs and/or bonuses go up in smoke over the past few weeks. Their pain will be shared by the whole city, as all of the companies designed to service them (like my company SW) will get squeezed. Not fun times in NYC...
2. Our current government, and in particular our President, have once again shown an embarrassing lack of competence. Both parties agree that action must be taken and yet the bill fails by 13 votes? Are you kidding me? The crazy thing is that the Democrats have enough votes to pass it 5 minutes from now but their afraid to do so without getting enough Republicans on board so they can call this unpopular (but necessary) legislation a 'bi-partisan' bill and save their own political necks. FAIL.

The Other:

 

1. I like Fred Wilson' idea about a price index for the Assets the government bus if this all goes through
   
2. Pete Rojas is right about all of these people saying that this is the start of a socialist state
   

Anyways... here's hoping they get something passed in the next couple days. Obama came out today after the bill failed to pass and told everyone to chill out and be patient- that something was going to get done soon. I hope my boy is right.

I took the N train out to Astoria for the first time today (weird that I hadn't been there before) to meet a guy named Jon who sells custom made bikes on Craigslist.  He takes empty frames, builds up entirely new bikes around them, and sells them online out of a small garage off of 28th and Ditmars.  The bike that I ended up buying from him is a Fuji frame single speed with a brand new red paint job and black accents all around the rest of the bike. I'm totally psyched about it... 

I was recently approached about a pretty cool job because a recruiter had stumbled onto my profile on LinkedIn, which then lead her to this blog and the rest of my online persona.  The fact that she wanted to offer me a job based on the ramblings that I post here, on Twitter, Facebook, and everywhere else made me realize that putting effort into social media can add value to your life in a variety of ways, one of which is professional.  I suppose a lot of other people blog for professional reasons, but I've always just done it for fun; as an outlet to talk about what's important to me.  That being said, I haven't been putting much effort into blogging lately for a number of reasons, none of which are that I didn't have anything to say. 

Anyone close to me knows that I love AMC's show Mad Men.  Yesterday I saw that someone was posting under the name of the show's main character, Don Draper, on Twitter.  Of course I starter following his updates, and within 24 hours almost every other main character on the show was following me on Twitter, I'd assume in the hopes I'd start following them in return.  It's a really interesting marketing idea.  They are trying to create personas within a real world social network for fictional characters.  The reason it works so well is that one of the strengths of the show is its attention to detail, which draws you into believing that the story you are watching is really happening.  I'll be interested to see if other ongoing TV shows with cult followings get into this sort of thing.  It would have been perfect for The Wire or The Sopranos, and could even work for Lost.

So far this year my favorite two records have been the Hercules & Love Affair record and the King Khan & The Shrines record 'The Supreme Genius of King Khan & The Shrines'.  For the uninitiated (you probably aren't) King Khan & The Shrines consists of King Khan, a Canadian born Indian guy, and a bunch of white guys from Berlin who form a pretty fantastic funk/soul band behind him.  They sound like Stax-era soul/Nuggets-era rock mixed with plenty of freaked out psychadelica.  It's an insane mix of American retro, created by Germans, and fronted by a fat Indian guy who howls like a hippie James Brown.  In a word: fantastic.

This vid is super-duper weird but is worth checking out because it includes some live footage as well as some insight into the general aesthetic of the group.  Dig it... and dig King Khan & The Shrines.  Out.

Rage Against The Machine absolutely killed it on Saturday night at Lolla.  100,000 people were on the verge of riot for 2 straight hours.  This was my view... 

beastie boys - root down (thriller remix) from bob jackson on Vimeo.

Last year I was at a Stanford GSB information session here in the city and one of the guys on the panel was talking about a new pants company he was getting off the ground with a former classmate.  The company slipped out of mind until last week when I realized that wearing the same dark, heavy APC jeans that I wore in January wasn't really the move in August.  In the interest of keeping things a little lighter below the belt, I decided to see if I could find some lightweight pants that worked for me. 

Now, when it comes to pants, problem #1 for 6'5" guys like me is that they always come up short in the length, giving you the 'high-water' look.  My APC jeans were the first pair of pants/jeans that I'd ever put on that were really long enough for me, which explains why I've still been wearing them all summer, despite the sweaty side-effects.  Anyways- I thought it was going to be impossible to find pants that fit in the waist but were long enough for me until I remembered Andy and his company Bonobos.  A week later I strolled into the SW offices rocking my Spider Fighters and looking downright spicy.  These pants are outstanding- the fit is perfect for athletic guys and they're really lightweight, which is great for the summer.

So there you have it... go to Bonobos.com, buy pants, and remember me as the influencer who started the movement.  Another thing- the website is really well designed and I love the no-retail angle.  Would love to see more clothes companies go in the same direction so that I can get higher-quality gear at lower prices.

More on Bonobos...

In the interest of following through on more of the challenges I wanted to meet in 2008, I'm going to publish my list on the Interweb. Hopefully this lights a fire under my ass...

• Significantly expand my professional network
  
• Start biking to work
• Take an international trip
• Start Volunteering
• Get a new DJ Gig. Get better at it
• Go to both my college and HS reunions
• Take a web design class
• Pick up photography again
• Get SW over 10,000 orders a day
• Build a team at SW that can keep what I've started going if I ever leave
• Take a trip to Cali (haven't been in years)
• Bench 200lbs
• Run 2 Miles in under 14 mins

5 Months to go....

Next time you want to figure out the fastest way to walk from here to there, use google.  Once they have this integrated with mobile devices, it's game over.  It seems a little bit buggy so far...

You don't want to see no cats up in a tree.  That shit ain't funny...

 (Don't watch this mom)

I thought this Interview with Fareed Zakaria from Charlie Rose was really insightful. For anyone who really cares about understanding the world they live in, I think the hour you need to give up to watch this is well worth the investment.

The new 3G iPhones drop on 7/11.  Thoughts on some of the changes:

1. They migrated to the 3G cell network for data.  Nice.  Thank you.

2. They added support for Microsoft Enterprise software.  This is great, but apparently (according to the IT guys at SW), the support for Enterprise works, but doesn't meet the stringent security rules of most corporate email systems.  That sucks- I guess I'll be on my Blackberry until they get that fixed.

3. Price- chopped down to $200 for the 8GB model.  Impressive. Nevermind- that was only for people who had the first generation.. Price is still $400.

4. Storage- no real improvement here.  I have 53 GB of music alone on my MacBook and I HATE having to pick and choose what I want to load onto a mobile device.  Here's hoping Apple starts adding more memory soon. 

Overall it's a nice improvement... especially the price drop.  I'll be giving away 5 of these for free pretty soon via a contest on the new SW Facebook page.  Going to be hard to let give them ALL away...

I spent most of the last three weeks at my five year Georgetown reunion, then hopping around Europe, and finally in Nantucket for Jay's bachelor party.  Highlights from the road below.  More pix here, here, and here.

Georgetown (5 Year Reunion)

• DJing the Saturday night party. Played the hits from '99-'03, including 'One More Time'
• Going for a run with Seth and seeing Roy Hibbert on O street.  We hollered at him and he gave us the #1 hand signal. We both cracked up...
• Burger madness from Wisemiller's
• Sleeping in the dorms and wondering how the hell I slept on such a crappy mattress for all of Freshman year.
• More than anything... seeing a lot of great people who've gone on to do great things in the past 5 years.  Not to be corny but I was really proud to be a part of the Gtown community that weekend... I had a really great time and realized how lucky I was to go to such a great school with such impressive people.
  
  

London

• Getting a history lesson at the British museum from Dad
• Taking the tube out to the Arsenal stop to see the Emirates stadium
  
  

Stockholm

• Stockholm was, aesthetically, the best looking city I've ever seen- no billboards anywhere, amazing views all over the place (the city is situated on 14 island, connected by bridges).
• First night in Stockholm, going for a walk at 1am and realizing the sun doesn't go down there in June (see pic below).
• Being there on June 6, the Swedish national day and seeing Swedish pride hit the streets
• Taking a boat tour out to an island in the Archipelago and eating some amazing salmon on the waterfront.
  
  

Berlin

• Realizing that our nice hotel room was about 100 feet away from a mega club that was playing Booka Shade until 5am.  Dad was not psyched about this.
  
• Watching the Portugal-Turkey match at a place full of Turks.  Turks are crazy.
• A loooong day of site seeing in which we did just about everything Berlin has to offer and both went to bed at 10pm.
  
• Heading out by myself on Saturday night to soak up the Berlin nightlife... ended up at 2 clubs but enjoyed walking the streets more than anything.  Crazy club kids, tourists, hookers, drug dealers, little kids still up at 2am.... Berlin has it all.
  
  

Munich (Meeting up with Meme & Papa)

• When I was 14, my grandparents took my sister and me to Bavaria for the classic 'expand your horizons' tour of another country.  This year my younger cousins Erik and Kyle are about the same age and my grandparents took them on pretty much the same trip.  I made a point of intercepting them at some point on my trip and Munich was the spot.  It was really great to see them and get to tour Bavaria with them again, just like the old days (hard to believe I'm twice as old now as the first time I was there with them).  The whole experience was sort of a deja vu thing...  we had a great meal at the Ratskellar in central Munich, then went on a castle tour the next day before finishing off the visit at a 5,000 person beer garden for the Netherlands-Italy match.  Great times!
   

Geneva (Portugal vs Czech Republic match for Euro 2008)

• Picking up our tickets at the McDonalds near the train station and realizing we'd been upgraded to better seats.  Pretty shady transaction though.
• Walking around Geneva before the match and joining the fans of both teams in getting hammered and singing songs.
• The national anthems
• A great match that ended up 3-1 with Ronaldo scoring the winner.
• Getting the hell out of Geneva as fast as possible once the match was done.  Seriously a pretty awful place, at least in terms of logistics for an event like that (expensive, congested, etc.)
   

Portofino (Kristen Eshak's wedding)

• Pix here
  
• Insane road coming down out of the alps that was never really on flat land during 100 miles of driving (bridge, tunnel, bridge, tunnel... cutting through the mountains and valleys).
• Meeting up with Justin and Jonathan during the Croatia-Germany match at Bar Miami.
• Going for a run along the seaside in Santa Margherita Ligure- insanely beautiful place.
• Stumbling into a local's lunch spot with the Eshaks to enjoy some of the best (and cheapest) Italian food I'll ever experience.
• Being charged $60 for 2 beers at the James Bond style yacht club we were at and negotiating the guy down to $25.
• Dancing to 'Put Your Hands Up For Detroit' at said yacht club
• Kristen's Wedding on Saturday... probably the nicest wedding I will ever go to.   We stayed up until 6am to watch the sun rise.   Too many great stories to tell here but let me just say that it was an all-time weekend and I was really glad to be there to be a part of such a big moment for my best friends' family.
  

Nantucket (Jay's Bachelor Party)

• Pix here
  
• An amazing day at the beach, full of volleyball, beers-bee, bocce, and lots of beer
• Seeing John Kerry at the straight wharf
• Having food/drinks spilled on me not once, but twice (thanks Paul and the bus boy at the Sunday morning restaurant)
• My introduction to the 'Life Is Good' (Stoli Ras, Sprite, Cranberry, Red Bull)
• A lot of stuff that happened on Saturday night that cannot be retold on the Internet, none of which included Jay, who passed out pretty early.
  
• Celebrating the institution of bachelor-hood with one of my favorite dudes- Mr. Jay Brupbacher-Evans.  Special love for Danny B, Bomo, and whoever else was responsible for putting together such a great weekend.
  

All in all, it's been an incredible month so far.  Glad to be home though...

I'm back in dat ass and will be at Sweet & Vicious tonight...
I wore the same tux that's on Jim in the pic below to Kristen's wedding last weekend... It's good to have another 6'5" friend.

 

I'm off to Europe for 2+ weeks... pix and whatnot upon my return.  Enjoy the beginning of summer!