Work For a Company? Or Work For Yourself?

Most of us at one point or another have thought about whether it is better to work for a company or to start your own business and work for yourself.

Both directions have their pros and cons, of course, and the grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence.

If you work for a company, you surrender a lot of control over your life over to other people, or to a system. If the economy is bad, or if the company is not doing well, they may decide to lay you off. If there are politics at work, and there always are, you have to fight that and if you lose they might fire you. You have to prove yourself - sometimes over and over if you have a change of bosses. There are so many factors in the workplace situation that affect you but you have no control over them.
When you are young, you seem too young for them to want to take a chance on you because, although you have energy and youth - you have no experience. But when you become older, they don't want you anymore. You are now experienced, but you don't have as much energy and youth as the younger ones.
On the other hand, the money is steady. The pay is usually pretty good. I remember a friend that I worked with at American Express. He left and went out on his own and we had a chat a couple of years later and he told me something I never forgot. He said that when you leave the corporate environment and go out on your own - it's really, really hard to replace that corporate-level income on the street. The package of salary, pension, benefits, etc. that a big company can put together is hard to match when you are self-employed. Also, there are skill standards you can educate and train yourself for, and certify and qualify yourself for to build credentials to get the position.
Someone else spends all the money and takes all the risks to set it all up. They pay millions of dollars for advertising, and marketing, and product development, and they spend years maybe, building the company up. One customer at a time, one deal at a time. They learned by trial and error and solving a million problems exactly how to build that company to what it is today. They pay all the taxes, and all the fees, and buy all the equipment. They build the building, and buy all the furniture. They make sure they have bought enough parking spaces in the parking lot. They pay for the power and lights, and heating and air conditioning. You just step into a ready-made company. Their risk is HUGE. Your risk is minimal. The worst that can happen to you is that you lose your job and then you just try and find another one. You might be up and running again in just a few weeks.


Then you have the option of working for yourself. Starting your own business. Let's take a look at that. The negatives are obvious. You pay all the costs, you assume all the risks. You have no established infrastructure, you have to buy it or build it - and it is frighteningly expensive! You pay all the taxes and fees. You might have employees and suddenly you have tremendous responsibility for them. Their lives and their families lives are in your hands - and most of the time you might feel like you don't know what you're doing. It is a daunting responsibility - if you think you can handle it easily, you might not have a firm grasp on the exact contours of the problem.
You have to find a product or service, or set of products and services that will allow you a competitive position that survives in the current and future market conditions. You have to decide whether to build that basic business premise from scratch or buy it from another company. You have to invest money over and over again when it seems like you may never get your money back. You have to have courage and faith, when it seems like nothing is going to work, and it seems hopeless - because you know that every successful business out there had a rough patch like this when they were getting started - many of them continue to have rough patches even as mature companies. Ford has been around a few years now, but they are certainly having a rough time - again. And how about those airlines? When was the last time they made a profit? How long would you continue to sink money, time, and energy into your company with no light at the end of the tunnel? How far will you take it into debt before just calling it quits? When does it no longer make sense to just keep pedaling?
When it's a mature business, everyone seems to rely upon YOU and your efforts to hold them up. To keep the whole machine running.
And when it's a startup, where do you get the money you need to start the company? Do you risk your house and borrow against that knowing that the reason banks don't loan money to start up businesses is because over 85% of them fail in the first year or two? Or do you seek out venture capitalists to help you fund it? But then they take an equity ownership position in the company and suddenly it's not your company anymore. In that case it's like you just have a job again because you have to report to them and please them. It seems more like their company now and you just work there. So what to do?
You wanted your own company because you didn't want to have a boss anymore - but when you own the company suddenly you find that you have hundreds of bosses. Thousands of bosses, because every customer is your boss, and your stockholders or investors are your bosses, and you have to answer to all of them. And what happens if your employees become unionized and use that power of collective bargaining to bankrupt you - or suck all the money out of the business that it is no longer viable or worth it to keep running? Or what if a new competitor enters the neighborhood, or the market? If you are a consulting company and you need to charge $92/hour to keep the company alive, but suddenly the Indian consulting companies enter the picture and they only charge $18/hour, what do you do? How do you compete with that? How much time, effort and money of what you have left should you spend trying?

And then there is the whole issue of lawsuits. Every major company has to deal with lawsuits. The larger ones have a permanent staff of lawyers that deal with the steady stream of lawsuits. There is no way to find this out for sure, but I would guess that probably half the lawsuits a company gets involved with have the potential of crippling the company or even causing it to go bankrupt.

I work for a small company of only about 30 people, and it's only been in business for 5 years so far, and yet pretty much every year there has been the threat of lawsuits from somebody somewhere. Suppliers sue customers, customers sue suppliers, employees sue employers, etc. Corporate lawyers are making a killing out there keeping the courts busy, or just punching each other using the bankbooks of their corporate clients.
Sometimes it is a competitor who is suing you to try to put you out of business because they cannot compete in any other more legitimate ways. Sometimes one company sues the other for what they claim to be "unfair practices" when they tried to compete over a deal. Often, it is employee-related. It might be wrongful dismissal, or sexual harrassment, or discimination accusations, or it might be another company suing you because you hired one or two of their employees away and they claim that caused them damage (we were sued for that last year and we won - but we could have easily been bankrupted.) Or one company sues another for copyright infringement, or because they say the second company stole their ideas when they hired a key staff member, or they claim another company stole their customer base when they hired their key salesrep who brought his rolodex with him - the list goes on.

There are a thousand different types of lawsuits that are constantly in rotation in the corporate world. Even for small companies. And you have to be aware of that before you step into the position of starting your own company up. There are many possible ways for lawsuits to actually shut the business down if you lose, from crippling it financially, to restricting trade in the marketplace or restricting the sales of products that you invested heavily in, or losing specific key customers for various unfair reasons, etc. But even when you win the suit you still have the ongoing legal fees for dealing with them as they come up. In this litigous society, it has become just part of the cost of doing business. But most business owners don't see it coming. They had no idea it was so pervasive, and so expensive. I dare say that if many of them knew the legal liabities involved in starting and running their own business they never would have started it up in the first place. For them, the risks, and the headaches and the stress and demands on them are just not worth it.

When you simply take a job and have a career within a large company, you don't have to worry about all that. Someone else takes all the financial and legal risks. You just show up for work, do your job, and collect your pay and live your life. Simple.

On the other hand, if you are working for someone else, unless you are a senior executive in a very large organization, you will probably never become rich - or even financially independent, because no one can afford to run a business like that. They cannot pay all the employees enough to become wealthy.
My father used to have a cabin cruiser style boat, and when I went to visit him at the marina, he took me around and showed me all the other boats and told me who owned each boat, and one thing struck me loud and clear about that. Every single boat was owned by a person that owned his own business. No one there was an employee of any company. Not one. These were not massive million-dollar yachts or anything. But they were boats from say 30 ft to 55 foot. They would have been worth from say $50,000 to perhaps $500,000 for one or two of the largest.
It seems that people who work as employees just usually don't make enough money to be able to support themselves with house, car, insurance, utilities, putting kids through college, dental bills medical bills, and all the expenses that come up, AND still be able to afford a nice boat on top of all that. There are always exceptions, of course, and people can always make sacrifices, but for the most part, chances are that the average person that owns a boat of more than 30 feet is probably a business owner. Obviously, that is where the real money is.
And along with that lifestyle goes larger houses, nice vacations once or twice a year, excellent dining, the better schools for the kids, and most importantly - financial security and financial independence. No worries for later. A comfortable life and safe, stable retirement.

So how about you? Do you like the idea of a nice safe job where the company takes care of all the costs and risks, but you have a boss? Or do you want your own business, with all the risks stresses and rewards that go along with that?

What do you think about it?

Performing Live Music - Cover Songs, or Original Music?

There is a kind of philosophical debate among musicians regarding the best way to become known and make your way in the music business.
Some musicians just want to play live in front of an audience, and they think the best way to do that is to play cover tunes that people are used to hearing on the radio. Apparently, that is what bar owners think their patrons want to hear and so that is usually what they hire for those venues. People end up going to the bars and hear the same tired old standards played over and over again by an endless line of cover bands for years. But that is how some musicians think the music industry works.

Lots of musicians simply like to play their instruments. They don't really care that much WHAT they play as long as they get to play. There is release in playing an instrument once you get good at it. And there is pride in the skills and talents. It just feels good. It's nice to feel the appreciation of the audience when they do a good job. Also, not all musicians are cut out to write music. They aren't interested, or they just don't have it in them to create in that fashion. So they play other people's songs - popular songs that everybody knows and recognizes. And those who do have a bit of an itch to write a few original tunes might use that as an opportunity to inject them where possible. In between playing "Celebration" and "Brick House", theoretically you might try to slip in the odd original tune hoping no one notices. The idea there is that you first become well known by playing cover tunes in the bars, and then eventually you come out with your own album and launch your own music. The problem with that is that the industry doesn't really work that way. I've done that for a living already. There are two separate music industries with different people in each one and with a wall of sorts between them.

For me, the purpose of having a band is not to 'sneak in' some original tunes to an audience who is there to listen to top 40 songs, or drink beer, or talk while the music plays in the background. I did that for a living when I was young. That was my full-time professional job for about 4 years back in the mid 70's. I was traveling on the road and playing with various bands in clubs steadily that whole time. These were bands like Nightflight, The Ace Baker Band, Rick Corey and Memphis, Luckless Pedestrian, etc. None of them ever amounted to much, really. They were just bar bands playing cover tunes. How could they go anywhere from just that? We played in bars. The managers/booking agents were not looking for ways to record our music and promote the albums, call up radio stations, etc. - they were not even in that business. So they simply lined up more bars for us to play. When there were no bar gigs or tours, then we didn't play, and we didn't get paid. This is why most musicians have to live with someone else who actually makes the money to pay the bills. It's not a very reliable way to make a living. That, boys and girls, is what's known as an understatement. Back then I was the highest paid guitarist on the circuit and I still only made $250 per week. Most made $100 to $150. Even in new math, that still only works out to about $10K per year. Even welfare pays more than that. So I left that world behind. The bars in towns dotted across the country, the travelling ever Sunday, riding in the truck with the equipment - sometimes sitting ON the equipment. The roadside junk food. The cheap hotels. The low money. The lack of any foreseeable better future. It was fun and cool for a while, but after 3 or 4 years, the shine wore off the penny.

But these days, especially in the last seven years, my main focus is all about writing and recording music. And I have recorded 11 albums containing 109 songs so far - with plenty more where that came from! But record labels are not interested in spending money to promote a recording artist that has music but no band to perform it live in concerts to help promote it. And so I decided to put a band together for that purpose. The band is called, "The Val Serrie Project" (or VSP for short). I plan to have us play anywhere we can in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, and I'm very willing to play for free to accomplish that. At least for the first while, until the reputation is more developed. But I want it to be my music that I'm promoting, not someone else's.

Think about all your favorite artists and imagine if they had not chosen to write your favorite music. For example, I think Sarh McLachlan writes beautiful music. Imagine if she had only ever played top 40 music in bars. None of her songs ever would have been written or out there for us to enjoy. It's the same with Pink Floyd, Toto, Billy Joel, Steely Dan, Vertical Horizon, Level 42, Sting, or The Eagles. I'm sure the Eagles could easily have been another top 40 band playing bars in L.A. and we never would have heard of them. If they didn't bite the bullet and just hunker down and write the music and promote it, then all those great songs would never have made it out into the world. The world would be a lesser place without their art in it. Well, I also have music that I want to be born into the world. I think it is worthwhile, that it has value. And I want to see it live.

One of the things I realized when I was a full time musician, was that if you spend your time playing covers in bars, you are not even on the track to getting your original music written, recorded, listened to, evaluated, and promoted. It just doesn't happen. There are two music worlds out there and they are completely separate. It is entirely different people in each business.
One provides living human jukebox services for bars. The managers and booking agents are all set up to place bands in bars, and find bands to place in bars. They set up 'tours', which are essentially a string of bars in a geographical sequence that the bands go to play. These guys have nothing to do with recording contracts, or radio gigs, or concert halls. They know people who own bars. And people who have bands that play in bars. That's their world. And in those bars you generally have a bunch of people who are there to get drunk and pick up members of the opposite sex to get laid. In that environment, the band is just part of the background noise to the setting. It could just as easily be a jukebox in the corner, or a DJ - it's just background. The ambiance of the nightclub scene.
If you look carefully at the picture to the right, you'll see a bar band playing there. However, you may also notice that they are being largely ignored. Of all the people shown in this crowded bar in the picture, only one seems to be even facing the band. How important do you suppose they feel their music is to any of the patrons of this place? To me, this is what it is to be a bar band playing covers in clubs. Some are larger and with a more prominant stage, and many are just like this - a small corner of a pub-like setting.

From what I've heard, the most famous and successful cover band in Dallas history was perhaps The Saints. Mike, a friend and longtime professional drummer that did most of the drum tracks on my last album, actually played with them for 2 years at one point. Ever heard of them? I'm thinking probably not, right? That might be because other than providing a live music backdrop to the bar scene at a bunch of bars around town for a few years, they contributed nothing to the music world in general. What would you have heard on the radio? Their rendition of "I'm Still a Young Man" or "Can't Touch This"? People would rather hear the original recordings by the original artists. Sure, playing in the band is a little extra cash for the guys in the band, and helps them make ends meet, but beyond that it's pointless - at least for my purposes.

And the other music business provides new music for the music industry, and plays concerts. They develop new rhythms, new melodies, new ideas. They go where others may not have gone before. Their music touches people when they hear it. They are the originals. I would much rather be in the second world. They are the ones that become famous. They are the ones that could potentially become rich. But, more importantly, they are the ones that contribute something to the culture. They add music to the world. That's what I want to do. I already did the other thing when I was young. I learned my lesson. I realized then that I was going to have to quit playing in bars to switch over to the other track, the original music track. Because I couldn't use my contacts in the live music-bar scene to get me anywhere in the recorded music/concert scene. They were simply not the same people. And since I made my living playing in bars, and that meant I was constantly traveling and never had enough money to launch a project on my own with that small an income, that meant I had to have a real job to support myself and do the music as a non-paying hobby until I could write enough material and produce an album, and then put together a band that can play it, and then promote it to the record industry. That was the way to launch that new music track. It's just taken me 30 years to get there. I'm still not there yet, but I have most of the pieces in place for that to happen. Finally.

Let's look at the parts I've accumulated so far: I have the music - I've written well over 100 songs. I have recorded them in the studio and created 11 albums. (9 albums of actual unique material,), including all the graphics and layout work. I have put together the website with extensive content. I have made up business cards, created a logo, and made up band t-shirts. I have the equipment. 20 guitars, 4 amps, 2 PODs, an array of stompboxes and rack mounted effects, a Pro Tools recording studio, a PA system, lights, etc. I have put a band together and practiced for over a year with the rhythm guitar player to teach him the music - which is fairly challenging to play, I must admit. I have created all the special backing-tracks CDs with special custom mixes for playing with different combinations of instruments, that way, it supplies the instruments and voices that I can't do live, and gives a good, consistent overall sound to the band. Now the band is almost ready. Our first performance is this weekend.

The problem now is that it has taken me a lot of years to get to this point, while doing very little else with my non-working life. I didn't go play golf. Or baseball or hockey. I didn't go fishing. I haven't been camping in over 15 years. I have focused pretty much my whole life on my music. Writing it. Playing it. Recording it. Tweaking it. Getting it right. Making it better. Learning more. In the meantime, I have gotten older. I am no longer the 21 year old, reasonable-looking young man with good hair. Now I am a guy who doesn't fit the profile for a rock star type at all. At least not for teenagers. My shot at fame and fortune has probably passed me by long ago because of that. I gave it up to make a living and support a family. But I have not given up. Now, I just hope for a tiny slice of that world. Just a small wedge of opportunity so that I can pour in my essence and contribute what I have to give.

I know I don't look cool enough to allow a record label to make me into a teenage rock star or anything, and most of the entertainment world is all about the looks, but I'm hoping that there is some part of the music world out there that still is focused on the music, and that might appreciate at least some of what I have to offer in that regard. Teenagers are not the ONLY ones who buy music. In fact, I think Wal-Mart and Target have discovered that most teenagers DON'T buy the music. They download it for free off the internet. The ones who actually BUY the CD's are the older folks like me. So I'm thinking that maybe there IS a market for my kind of music, since a large portion of the BUYING public is of similar vintage to me.

So that's what I am doing, and why. It would be a shame if all this effort for all these years was all for nothing. But we have to try, don't we? Most of us seem to spend our lives watching TV and letting it suck the energy and the life and the potential right out of us minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day. At least I am trying to do something with the time and energy and creativity and talents I have. That can't be bad, can it?

Fake Guitars, Fake iPODs, and Other Counterfeits

In the picture shown above, the guitar on the right is a Gibson Les Paul Custom. The so-called "Black Beauty" and it sells for $3654.99 at Musiciansfriend.com and at similar prices in most guitar stores. On the same webstore, the guitar on the left, the Epiphone Les Paul, also by Gibson, sells for $699.99. To play them, it's hard to tell the difference. Many would say that the only difference is the name on the headstock.
So these are legitimate copies. They are done to allow Gibson access to the lower priced guitar market without sacrificing their high-margin, high-end market. They make far less margin on the cheaper line, but the idea is to have them manufactured in China with cheaper labor to reduce costs as much as possible, and then make up the rest of the difference by selling a much larger volume to a broader market. The Gibsons might sell to the pros and the serious amateur players, but the Epiphones can sell to any teenager who has a passing notion to learn guitar.

However, there are many copies that are not legitimate. They are earnestly trying to misrepresent their guitars as the famous brand names they appear to be.

The other day I went to a garage sale because the guy had a nice flame-top Les Paul, a strat for $200, and brand new Tele for $150, and some flight cases for around $40 each.
When I got there, there was a mountain of stuff - mostly junk - in this guy's backyard and garage.
The Les Paul was a gorgeous flame-top Gibson Les Paul Classic, but he wanted $1800. Not a terrible price if I was buying it from a reputable store, but not from a guy selling off a pile of junk out of a garage.
The Tele was just a Squire Tele, so it was only barely worth the $150 brand new from a store. And the Strat was an anomaly.
It was very old and worn.
It had a large 70's-style headstock, and the finish was worn through enough to be that old, but a couple things didn't add up...
The headstock sticker did not say made in USA, or made in Mexico, or Korea, or Japan. I have never seen a legitimate Fender not say where it was made SOMEWHERE. Many of the American ones say it on the back of the headstock. Also, this has no serial number anywhere. Also, the neck did not have a one-piece maple neck, it had a maple fretboard, mounted on another white wood, but the grain was something different. Ash maybe? I don't know. Then the bridge was like the modern style saddles, but the headstock was like the 70's style.
My conclusion was that the guitar is a counterfeit. It's probably a Squire Strat and someone sanded off the name sticker and created their own Fender Stratocaster sticker and left off the Made In USA and the serial number (since that would give it away). For 200 bucks, you can buy a brand new Squire strat if that's what you want.

Then, about a month ago, I checked out a bunch of Les Pauls for sale on eBay. There are warnings about these guitars. They are sold from China and look exactly like Gibson Les Pauls and have the same logo and name plates, etc. but they are made in a factory in China.
That's not that hard to do. The Epiphone factory in China makes Epiphone Les Pauls that look exactly like the Gibsons they copy, but they sell for $500 full retail instead of $3000 or more.
It would be a relatively minor thing to change the name on the headstock to say Gibson instead of Epiphone and few would know the difference. Especially now that the Epiphones are using the Gibson pickups as well.

But that's Epiphone, a brand name owned by Gibson, and authorized to sell copies. The guitar pictured here is an Epiphone Les Paul Standard. Other than the name and headstock top edge, it's indistinguishable from the original Gibson Les Paul Standard pictured below.

These other fake guitars are something different. They often have an ebay price of $5 or something, but the shipping from China is $250 british pounds, which ends up being about $400-$500US anyway. So the real price of the guitar is buried in the shipping charges rather than the price. That cheats ebay out of their commission, and also allows them to say they will refund your money for the guitar, but not of course the shipping charges. That means if you are unhappy, you get your $5 back. But you're still out the $500 for shipping.

The warnings that are out there are all about how these are cheap imitations, though. Pickups don't work. Bridges snap strings, knobs fall off, tuning machines can't hold it in tune, etc.
If you look carefully, there are subtle differences between the Epiphones and the Gibsons. Like the fretboard on a Les Paul Custom should be ebony, but on the Epiphone copy of a Custom it is only rosewood. And the very top edge of the Epi is sculpted a different shape than the traditional Gibson mustache-shape, etc. But other than that, they are very very close. Fit and finish are hard to tell apart. The Epis are actually excellent value for the money, in fact.
But these fakes from China seem a little more obvious. Like maple neck on a Gibson Les Paul instead of mahogany, or clear-finish maple top, or wrong tuners, or whatever. You have to know what to look for.

This one here is an original Gibson Les Paul from 1960. This guitar is probably worth over $100,000. The Epiphone version of this costs about $500. The differences are miniscule. Hardly worth $100,000.

Here you see a photo of my own personal 1989 three-pickup white Gibson Les Paul Custom. A very rare guitar. The list price from Gibson was $5995. It plays and sounds beautifully. A wonderful and powerful guitar, made to play and feel like a jewel. A particularly HEAVY jewel, I might add. This guitar weighs in at over 13 lbs. Try playing with that around your neck for a whole 2 hour show!
And below we have a similar Epiphone copy of the Gibson that sells for about $699. This one only has the two pickups, but they do make the three pickup as well. The difference in color is only due partly to lighting and partly due to age. The white color deepens into a creamy yellow with age. They become more desirable as the age. As all Les Pauls do. Other than that, the Gibson and Epiphones are very similar.
Many of the fakes from China are easily recognizable, but not all. Some of them are indistinguishable from the original. So if someone buys one of these Chinese fakes, and re-sells it here in the US as an original, how would you know? And for that matter, if you can't really tell the difference, does the difference really matter? And if so, how? If you pay $1500 for a used Gibson Les Paul and you get what appears to be a Gibson Les Paul, and what sounds like a Gibson Les Paul, does it make a difference if it started out as a $400 replica?

I would wonder about the serial numbers. Did they also replicate the appropriate serial numbers to make it seem legitimate?

Would you buy one? What do you think about the possibility that you might end up getting a fake while thinking you are buying an original? Does it make a difference that no one, including you could tell ? (if the replica is very good) If you bought it as a Gibson and could sell it to someone else as a Gibson, the whole time thinking it was really a Gibson - does it make a difference? If that does bother you, how could you ensure that you AREN'T buying a replica? (assuming they use accurate serial numbers)


Then, yesterday I heard on NPR radio about a whole large stock of fake iPODs that came out of China and are now flooding the world. They are in Mexico city right now. They look exactly like, and play and sound exactly like the Apple iPOD, but instead of costing $300 and $400, they cost $129.
Would you buy one?

iPOD has cornered the market on MP3 players. over 75% of the US market is iPOD. Everybody wants one. But they are expensive, and so the market is ripe for replicas. Ironically, that was what made the IBM PC the world standard for computers instead of the Apple Macintosh. Everyone copied the PC until it became the defacto standard computer. Meanwhile the MAC has remained a niche market - though still thriving.

Then there are the fake copies of software out there from Windows to Ms OFFICE, to graphics programs to whatever. There are also generally made in China.

Then there are the fake music CD's that are being produced in Mexico. Somebody just had their warehouse raided. It was full of blank CD's and all the fixin's to reproduce popular music CD's with identical covers and packaging, etc. and sell them through internet and flea markets, etc. for $5 each instead of the full $15 to $20 each through legit channels and paying the record label it's share.

Then there is the whole issue of generic drugs. One pharmaceutical spends a few hundred million dollars to develop a new drug, and then once they bring it to market, others copy their patent and start making it and selling it at a fraction of the cost. What do you think about that? If you need the drug for your health and the generic drug costs $20, but the original name brand costs $60 (because they are trying to recoup their research and development investment) which would you buy?

How about replica perfumes? If it smells exactly like Chanel Number 5 but costs $15 instead of $250, is it better to buy that? Is it a good deal? Are there risks? What is the downside?

What about the famous Rolex watch copies? Everyone has seen or at least heard of fake Rolex watches that look like the real thing but sell for $30 instead of $5000. A close relative of mine paid over $8,000 for a very fancy Cartier dress watch. I showed him a website where he could buy a very high quality replica of the exact same watch for around $249. That is not a cheap watch, it's very good quality. No doubt, it keeps perfect time and would last as long as the original Cartier watch. And the copy is so good that even a jeweler cannot tell the difference unless he opens it up, takes out his magnifying glass and looks up the part numbers on the components on his manufacturer order sheets. They even have believable serial numbers. No one that he meets in a business meeting could ever possibly tell that it was a replica Cartier. In fact, the cruel irony of it is that most people would assume that the watch is a replica whether it is or isn't - so even the bragging effect of it is lost, unless you go around pointing out to people you wish to impress that you actually paid $8,000 for a genuine brand name article. I think any points you hoped to make by impressing someone with that fact would immediately be cancelled out by the crass over-materialistic superficiality of the gesture. And so the value from the $8000 is lost completely.

But if you wanted the impressiveness factor without spending the big money, it's easy enough to get the replica watches. Or Cubic Zirconium diamond jewelry as well. Some of those manmade diamonds are hard to tell from the authentic thing without a jewellers loop and a gemologist's diploma. So is there value in paying for the original higher-priced item?

What about you? Do you buy based upon principle or practicality?

What do you think about the counterfeits? Are replica guitars the same as replica iPODs, replica software and replica drugs?

There is also the question "What is the real value of these things?" From a larger perspective, if a company in China can produce a product like a Les Paul style guitar identical in every way to the original guitar made by Gibson in Nashville, however the one made in China can be manufactured, shipped to the US, and sold for $400, is that the real value of the product, and the Gibson price of $3800 is just ridiculously high and just simply price-gouging for the same thing?

What is your opinion on all this?

The Libertarian Approach Thought Through

Recently, on a forum that I have participated in a lot over the years, there was a person who was strongly promoting the Libertarian party.

If I may be allowed to summarize their position in a nutshell, this is the party that suggests that the current government is too large, too out of control, and not responsive to the needs of the voting public, and irresponsible about how they spend our tax dollars. So they believe that the government should be drastically reduced in size and their roles and responsibilities drastically reduced as well. "Every man for himself" as it were. They generally believe that each person should provide their own retirement funds, and medical coverage, and unemployment contingencies. They do not feel a social safety net is a good thing and that it fosters laziness and lack of responsibility in the public.

I hope that was a fair representation. I think it was. My response to the discussion is as follows:

I think that private industry is better at operating more efficiently than the government, because they are used to operating in a competitive environment.
However, I think we still need government agencies and programs to safeguard the interests of the public in general because private industry operates purely out of self interest.

Someone has to create and enforce rules about pollution and safety. If left to their own, chemical companies would all pollute the planet until it was unliveable, car companies would make unsafe vehicles to save money, there would be no national parks, or any interstate highways. No subdivision developer is going to create a big highway system at a cost of billions of dollars. And finally, who would fight our fires, police our streets, or defend our country? Private industry? I don't think so.

The trick is to find a balance between government and industry. A good balance that both serves the need for efficiency in operating as well as the need to treat everyone fairly and uphold the interests of the general public.

I think that the current political system is too flawed. The Electoral College approach seems crazy to me. It was built to accommodate a population of uneducated farmers that could not understand issues. The current party system is also wrong and broken. It allows and reinforces all the bad aspects of politics and control and power - I don't need to list them here, we all know the back-room politics and lobbyist things that happen.

Why in the world is it necessary to claim a whole state as being either red or blue? If it's a federal election for a president, why can't we just make a popular vote for the president we like? Don't just discount all the votes in a state that didn't vote for the party that won that state.

If the Democrats won by a large majority in some states, but lost by a narrow margin in more states, then the Rebublicans win the election even though the Democrats got more votes. That is the DEFINITION of a broken system.

AND - we allow the politicians in charge to redraw the boundaries of districts, and thereby carve up the districts containing demographic groups that would traditionally vote for the other party. That then splits up their vote so the other party loses. That is why Texas is a RED state. Because the Republicans carved up the ethnic communities of blacks and Mexican voters so that they would not have enough votes within their new re-drawn districts to be able to vote a Democrat into office.
It's called Jerrymandering, and to me this just seems criminal. It IS organized crime in control when they do things like this.

The irony is that we have the chutspa and unmitigated gall to go tell other countries how to create a fair democratic system in their countries, and then rate them and rank them according to our criteria. And yet we do things like these. What incredible, unfathomable arrogance!


We need a better system, but getting rid of government altogether, or weakening it too much does NOT lead to more power for the people. It does NOT lead to freedom, wealth, comfort, or peace. Instead, it creates a vacuum that sucks in organized crime.

Organized crime is a powerful force in the world. They tend to take over any country that does not have a strong enough government to resist them. Witness Russia as a prime example. Most of the organized crime websites in the world right now are all based in Russia, or other countries of the former USSR. Once that strong government broke down, then organized crime took over. Philosophically speaking, this is because the power of organization and planning will always beat anarchy and non-direction.

So pick your poison. Strong government with internal controls, voting and processes and a system you can enter and work within - or organized crime. Some cynics would argue that our current government IS already very much like organized crime! Wink

Is that our only choice? Maybe not. There are two other ways to go, as far as I can tell. Create a much more muscular United nations, which keeps all the national governments accountable to the rest of the world, so there are no crazed renegade dictators and power-mongers, war mongers out there, and it also keeps them in line with how they govern their charges. Keep the people happy and productive. Don't kill them and starve them. But this is difficult to do this when there are no countries that can counter-balance the US military superpower supremacy. It's hard to get people to surrender a lead position.

But there is another way to make our system fair, reasonable, and yet keep it strong and resilient to organized crime takeover.

Simply change how the legislation is voted on. Instead of having the politicians vote on the bill, have the public vote on the bill. The politicians can draft the legislation, and the people vote on it.

If they can take votes from millions of people on American Idol, then they can do it for voting on our nations issues. Could be online. Could be over the phone. Everyone gets a vote. Obviously measures have to be taken to ensure security and accuracy, but that is a detail, that I could describe separately (and did in the article I wrote about this a while back on my blog)

Think what the ramifications of this approach are:
People who have skills at drafting legislation do just that. People who are affected by the legislation actually get to vote on it.
There is no more vote-buying by lobbyists on Capitol Hill, because there are no real votes to buy anymore. The whole Jack Abramoff approach to politics goes away because the system has changed and there are no longer incentives to cheat. No power brokers. No kingpins.

This would be a MUCH better system - but how to get the existing politicians to relinquish their power. THAT is the thorny problem to solve.

I believe that if you remove the social safety net that provides for the disenfranchized and unfortunate people in this country, then you are asking for a whole different kind of trouble.

According to some quick research I just did a moment ago, we had about 2 million people remaining on welfare across the US by 2000. This was reduced by one third by the welfare reform bill that president Clinton put in place in 1996.
Of course that number may well have gone back up since president Bush took office because of the 4 year major recession, the outsourcing of our jobs to India and other countries, the 2 million bankruptcies per year that we now have, and natural disasters such as hurricane Katrina. I wouldn't doubt it if we are now at 4 million people on welfare, although that's just a guess. It could easily be higher. And that doesn't include those people on Social Security. That's another large group of people.

Welfare is how these people survive. Should we just assume that if we stopped their welfare checks they would suddenly all find jobs that allow them to support their families? That doesn't seem practical or reasonable or even possible for many reasons.

This is similar to the people who want no one to hire or continue paying any undocumented immigrant workers. That's roughly 12 million people who would suddenly have no way to survive.

The reality of the situation is that none of these people simply evaporate into thin air the moment you kick them off whatever program that sustains them today. You cannot find them and ship them elsewhere to other countries because no one has their names, addresses and phone numbers - that's part of what "undocumented" means. And, together with all the people formerly on welfare, they would comprise a force of perhaps 16 million people.

Then there are the armed forces. The US spends more than the entire rest of the world combined on military expenditures. If a Libertarian government is put in place, they would no doubt want to bring that spending down drastically by eliminating most of those troops off the payroll, and slashing military spending on equipment and weapons systems. So what happens to the companies that form the industrial complex that sells to the military? What happens to their workers and jobs? What happens to all the soldiers suddenly out of work with no jobs to go to, and no social safety net to keep them from starving to death? There are millions more people affected in this area as well. Let's take a wild guess at perhaps another 4 million people affected in total.

So now we have a total of about 20 million people with no way to support themselves. Do we expect them to lie quietly and starve - or kill themselves voluntarily?

If they could no longer maintain their living honestly, what other option do you suppose they might have?

Right.

Does it seem wise to remove the only means of support for 20 million people and force them into a life of crime to survive?

The US already has the highest incarceration rate of all developed countries in the world. We have more prisoners than communist China, even though they have 5-6 times our population. Our overcrowded prisons now contain about 3 million prisoners. There is no capacity to handle a large new group. We certainly could not suddenly double, triple, quadruple, or quintuple our national prison capacity.

20 million people is more than half the population of Canada. It's more than the entire population of Australia. It's more than the populations of Greece, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Austria, Portugal, Belgium, Netherlands, and many other well-known European countries.

How do you suppose our society would deal with 20 million new desperate criminals? Well, the main thrust of Libertarian philosophy is to reduce or eliminate taxes by reducing or eliminating government services. That doesn't allow for new prisons that would contain millions of new prisoners. Police are part of the government services. Do we create 20 million new criminals, and then also remove or reduce the already insufficient police forces across the country?

How many of us should expect to be killed in our sleep? Shocked

Also, at first glimpse it might seem fine at the high level to say that everyone has to pull their own weight, and we need to eliminate those who don't, but that perspective seems okay only if you yourself are fit and prepared to work. What happens when you become one of the ones who are too old to work, or are incapacitated by long illness. Eventually, most of us get sick, and ALL of us get old. There will come a time for most of us when we may need a social safety net. Have you looked at the price of nursing homes and other old age care facilities lately?

This is part of what civilization itself is all about. We work as a group to pull the whole group forward. A rising tide lifts all boats. A civilized and enlightened society can lift the tide for everyone.
Otherwise, we end up in a world where the few strong ones are walled up and surrounded by the savage world outside their gates. They must be constantly vigilant against the desperate ones who try to survive by looking for ways to attack the wealthy ones and take what they have. That sounds like a fallback from civilization to savagery. I have a number of friends who are from South Africa. Their stories are similar to that. There are 2 million whites and 42 million blacks, and the whites mostly live in houses with high cement walls around them and barbed wire, and trained killer guard dogs, etc. They have told me many stories of incredible crime and violence.

It doesn't sound like a world I'd like to live in. And these friends that I know and work with have all managed to escape from SA, and they tell me the other whites in South Africa seem eager to get their chance to do the same as soon as possible. To them, this country, just as it is now, is like paradise by comparison.

Of course, not everyone who is unemployed becomes a criminal. Only the ones who cannot get work or find some other way to survive. Only if you take away Social Security and welfare and the safety net to allow them to survive and feed their families.
But let's think for a minute about the other effects on us besides the potential for exploding crime around us. If the Libertarians have their way and eliminate the big government we have now, what happens to all those people that work for the government today? They become unemployed, right?

Let's continue this logical cause and effect process a little further. Let's say there are 10 job openings for an accountant right this moment in your city. If you are the only accountant looking for a job in your city, you would probably have a choice of jobs, right? How much salary could you demand if you were the only person with that skill set available? You would do very well, wouldn't you?
Well, how about when the economy is a little tougher and there are 100 people with your qualifications competing for that same job in that same city? What does that do to your chances of getting a job, and how much would the employer have to pay you if there are 99 other people competing for the same position?
Now imagine that 2/3rds of the government jobs across the country are eliminated. How many thousands of people are you now competing with for that same job? People from all over the country would be trying to get at the jobs in your town. D.C. would virtually shut down and the people would be everywhere else in every other town scouring the streets for work. What are your chances of getting a job then? How much less would you be willing to take for a salary to compete with the thousands of other available and desperate workers?

But what if you are already employed and don't need to get a new job? Then you're safe, right?
Hardly. If your employer is paying you the average median salary of roughly $70,000 today, and he sees that he can replace you with someone else for half the salary, what do you think he would do? In fact the goal of all companies is to make a profit. What do you suppose happens when their executives realize they could churn their staff and cut payroll by 50%?
You would find yourself on the street in a flash, and competing with all those displaced government workers who by now are desperate to work for a lot less money.
Think about this. How many months of salary do you have saved up right now to pay the bills if you lost your job today? How long would it take to find another job? How long would you hold out for a job that pays your existing income before you decide you have to drop your expectations to compete to get a job? If you had not worked in a year, would you take a job at half your old salary just to get working again and get some bills paid and keep your skills up? Of course you would - so would all the others. This is what happened in this last recession we had. Many people who had computer-related jobs were unemployed for more than 2 years even. Now, the few remaining are working for a lot less money than they once were. Just imagine if they were also trying to compete with a few million laid off government workers at the same time?

And what happens when suddenly you have massive unemployment and those who ARE employed are employed at such a low salary that they cannot afford to buy the products and services that keep the engine of our economy turning? What happens when no one can afford new cars or houses, or refrigerators, microwave ovens, or toasters, or clothes? What happens to the companies when they can't sell their goods and services? They go out of business. What happens to their employees? They join the exploding ranks of those already unemployed and the situation continues to feed itself into an accelerating downward spiral.

It is called "total economic collapse". It's already happened before elsewhere. It could easily happen here. An economy is like an ecosystem. There is a delicate balance, you can only screw with it so much before it just falls apart in your hands.

This is simply the reality of a capitalist society and a free market economy driven by supply and demand. And this is what would happen if we suddenly dropped the size of our government and military, took people off welfare and cutoff undocumented immigrant workers.

Some things sound like they make sense until you start to work out all the details and the ripple effects.

Somehow, it seems like this Libertarian philosophy may not have been thought all the way through to it's eventual conclusion yet.

By comparison to Canada with over 50% income tax, and other countries in Europe that are even higher, our 29% income tax here in the US seems small. Especially when we can claim mortgage interest, health care costs, etc. as deductibles. Speaking for myself, I am happy to pay my fair share of taxes in order to maintain a civilized society with it's infrastructure intact and manageable unemployment, relatively safe streets, and a social services safety net that takes care of my less capable or less fortunate brothers and sisters. I'd like to know there is a plan that might take of me too if I needed it someday. But while I can, I will help support and help those I can. I am happy to do my part. Life here is generally quite good. It can always be tweaked and improved, but let's not break it, shall we?

Of course that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

The Lost Art of Conversation

I am thinking of writing and publishing another book.
The subject I am considering is the lost art of conversation. This article is the basic start of the book.

Once upon a time there were no computers, so there was no email, or text messaging. People did not carry cellphones with them capable of text-messaging their friends in a constant wash of digital chatter. People actually laughed, they didn't "LOL". In those days, the following assortment of letters and numbers, "ruok? 2g2btru. k. gr8. g2g. ttfn." didn't have any meaning. These days that passes for an entire conversation.

In this golden era of yesteryear, there also was no television, or even radio. And frankly, it wasn't all that long ago, really. Those inventions are all from the last few decades. So what did people do to entertain themselves in the thousands of years before that since we have had civilization in this world? Well, some learned to play musical instruments, some took up painting, some were driven to sports. But pretty much everybody talked.

That is, they had conversations, real conversations. Conversations that could last for hours. You might think, "What, every day? With the same people? What in the world would they find to talk about once they had exhausted the topics?"

Well, therein lies the art of conversation. This is the knack of speaking with someone and retaining their interest, engaging their mind and emotions, entertaining yourself and them, connecting to their inner person. Truly communicating with a person. People who master the conversational skills usually rise to the higher
levels of whatever field they go into. It is a universally valuable skillset. If you can carry on a conversation with anyone, including those who don't have very good communication skills, then, chances are, you can make friends with them. And it always helps to have friends - especially in the right places.
And in these days of digital communication where everyone uses email and text messaging to communicate more than their voice, the art of conversation is almost lost in the general population. It's sad to think, but there is a silver lining to that dark cloud. That means that you can, with very little effort and skill, become a better conversationalist very easily. People are so bad at it, that if you
have any skills at all, you can be fantastic by comparison.

So what is the art of conversation? What are the tricks? How is it done, and how does one improve their skills? Below are some guidelines you can use to create better conversations. Use these to improve you social status, your relationships and your life overall.

1. Listen. Hear and understand what the other person is saying. Joey from the TV show Friends said once on one of the episodes, "Look, there are two parts to the conversation. Speaking..... and waiting to speak.". That sounds hilarious, and I laughed out loud when I heard him say it, but frankly, the reason it's funny is because so many people DON'T listen. They talk over other people. They seem to have an agenda that the only important reason for the conversation is for them to convey
some information. Or they mumble something while walking away. They don't feel the other person has anything valuable to say. Or they are afraid to hear it. Or they are merely going through the motions of conversation for the sake of form. Or boredom. Or they simply lack conversational skills.

2. Be polite. Don't talk over the other person. Let them make their points.

3. Be respectful of the other person's privacy.

4. Have something to talk about.

5. Be aware of time. Don't start a two hour conversation when you know you're only going to have 10 minutes to talk.

6. Be genuine. Say what you mean, mean what you say.

7. Be aware of the other person's needs.

8. Learn to read body language and other sub-text signals. Know when you might be offending a person, when you have interested a person, angered a person, know when the conversation should be ended or the subject changed.

9. Be in the right mood, and make sure your partner is also in the right mood. Match your mood to theirs. If one is ebullient and the other is grumpy, it won't work.

10. Don't move in too close to the details too fast. Start general and at a polite distance from the details. Stay at a high level, then gradually drill down to the details as the conversation progresses, and as you receive signals from the other person to continue.

11. Avoid swearing or speaking in a vulgar manner.

12. Speak clearly, concisely, calmly, and don't keep repeating yourself. yourself. yourself. yourself. yourself. yourself. yourself yourself yourself yourself yourself yourself. How many times was the word "yourself" just repeated? Chances are you don't know - you'd have to go back and count them. The reason is that when we detect repetition, we tend to tune out. We shut off the reception, and say, "OK, I get it. Move on." The same attitude and reaction holds true if you are listening to a person repeat an idea several times. Say it once, or possibly repeat the concept using different words if you suspect that the idea is not getting across.

13. Unless it is a sales call, don't have an agenda other than just friendly conversation. If they suspect you are trying to sell them something, then most people will immediately shut you down, tune you out, ignore what you say and avoid you. If it IS a sales call, then make that clear up front - don't mislead them into thinking this is a friendly conversation and then try to use that to weasel a contract for life insurance. People are not stupid. They see that, and they won't
like it. It seems manipulative, and it is. And it's disrespectful. The implied assumption is that you know they don't want to talk to you about whatever you're selling and so you have to trick them into it. If they are caught in that, then they will most likely remain polite, but they will not buy what you're selling because you abused their trust already, and they will try to end the conversation as quickly as
possible. These kinds of tactics are why most people find salespeople annoying and off-putting. A better technique for a salesperson is to use the first conversation as just conversation to establish a relationship. Find common ground. Build rapport. Then, on a subsequent meeting, once the relationship has been established and the salesrep is seen as a person and not just a salesrep who wants something, THEN, they might try a sales call - but make it clear what the intention is. Be upfront, and respect their intelligence. This goes for sales, for recruitment, for borrowing money, or signing a petition. Don't use your conversational techniques to trick people into a situation they don't want to be in so you can benefit. Be honest and genuine and respectful of their feelings and their time.

14. Give the other person the benefit of the doubt. Assume they are intelligent, knowledgeable, practical, sensible, responsible, kind, considerate, and wise. People respond well when they think they have left that impression, or if they think they have a fresh start to wash away old mistakes and be able to prove themselves again. Show them that they have an excellent opportunity to impress you and prepare to be
impressed.

15. If you are impressed with them in some way - express that. Give credit where credit is due. But if you are not really impressed, then don't gush out your accolades. It is insincere, and ultimately it is disrespectful of their intelligence and their feelings. Honest appreciation at the right level is best.

16. Learn to use humor well. That is, learn some harmless jokes and use them to lighten a mood. But be careful of humor that might insult or offend the other person. Not everyone has the same sense of humor. Humor can be used to make a person a friend or an enemy very quickly. It is powerful. So use it wisely. Usually, self-deprecating humor is the safest type.

17. Learn how to end a conversation properly. Don't end it abruptly by going silent and refusing to answer a question, or switching to a different person and ignoring the first person.
It is okay to let it trail off into silence. Two people on a long flight together don't have to talk all the way there. Signaling that you have to go can be fine. Recapping the original points to bring the conversation circling around to the beginning can be a classy way to end it nicely, by artistically finalizing it and simultaneously showing that you were listening to them, valuing what they had to say, and will remember their points. Thanking a person for the conversation is also a very gracious and polite way of ending it.

18. Ask their opinion on the subject. Don't just say yours and leave it at that or change the subject. Give them a chance to respond to it.

19. Show the person you understand their points and appreciate their conversation by repeating their points back to them.

20. Don't keep changing the subject too quickly. Finish making your points on one subject, and letting them make their points before moving to the next subject. On the other hand, know when a subject is dead, don't keep poking it with a stick long after it's stopped breathing.

21. Pace yourself to match their speed. If one person is calm and the other is all excited and talking fast, there will be disconnects. You can talk but you won't really connect.

22. Be open minded. Always consider that they might have information that you don't and they might be right and you might be wrong. As long as they feel you are open-minded and willing to listen to them and consider their opinions, they will continue to voice them. But if they think they are talking to a wall, then they will shut down, because they don't want to waste their time or energy.

23. Respect yourself. Don't automatically surrender your points to the other person. If their opinion is the opposite of yours, stick to your guns a little until you can see whether their argument is better than yours. If it is, then gracefully acknowledge their better position. Also, if the other person is being vulgar, petulant, arrogant, obnoxious or unpleasant in any way, learn a few techniques for shutting down the conversation. You can tell them that you've found it best not to discuss that subject with people because it usually leads to problems, or change the subject to another less dangerous one, or if that doesn't work to disarm an annoying person with unwanted conversation, simply excuse yourself and walk away.

24. Breathe once in a while. Don't let out a nonstop barrage of words and ideas and expect the other person to just take it all in in one piece. It's impolite, and besides, most people don't have an attention span to last long enough to hear everything you said. Also, most people only have enough intellectual and memory capacity to be able to retain one or two ideas in their head at once. If you present too many points in one gulp, then they cannot absorb your points, and remember their own comments they want to make at the same time. If the other person is spraying a barrage of word and ideas, then offer them a drink. Most people can't speak and swallow at the same time. Speak when they drink. Also, you can offer them a sincere compliment. You might find that a person shuts up when you are saying something about them that they want to hear.

25. Know your audience. You probably aren't going to be able to discuss theoretical physics with a 12 year old child, or the adventures of a cartoon hero with an 80 yr old man. Also, there are topics that men favor, and other topics that women favor more than the other gender. Men don't get down, have a few beers and talk about flower arranging, crafts, and decorating the babies room very often. Women don't often get into conversations about hunting, or guns, or replacing the transmission on the pickup truck. They usually don't think about which size truck and which class of hitch is required to tow a 10,000 pound trailer. You might want to avoid talking about Christmas movies to a Jewish person, or women would do well to steer around the subject of pain and discomfort and mess of menstrual periods with men in social situations.

26. Don't try to trump the other person by claiming to be an authority on the subject when you are not. If you speak responsibly and authoritatively about the subject, then you will create credibility for your positions and ideas based on their own merit. They shouldn't need the added emphasis of your resume to prop them up. Not only is this kinder and more polite, it is also a way to keep the other person engaged in the conversation. If the conversation is about physics, and you state that you happen to be a professional physicist, and hold a PhD from Princeton, and have published your work on 10 dimensional closed-loop superstring theory, you might find that the other person has shut down, and the conversation is over.

Topics.
You will need something to talk about. Do you have a favorite topic to discuss? Would you like a few suggestions? Well, there are hundreds of topics to discuss, of course, but here are about 100 different topic areas that can be good conversation-starters to get you going. And many of these have many other topics within them. If you look these over, and do a little thinking about them, and remember a few key facts that are useful to bring up when needed, then you should be
able to carry your own weight in any conversation situation. If none of these topics work with the person, then you are trying to talk to the wrong person. Just leave them alone.

1. Context-sensitive. The train station you are in. The plane you're on, flying. The bus you are on, the restaurant you are both eating in. The class you are both taking, etc. The game you are both watching - whatever is around you right at that moment.
2. Obvious shared interest - They have a t-shirt with the logo of your favorite band on it, your favorite sports team, they drive your favorite car, etc.
3. Current affairs, items in the news.
4. Everyday topics - smalltalk. The weather. The traffic. Losing weight, Cold, flu, how they are feeling, etc....
5. Common friends or acquaintances
6. Other people
7. Funny observations
8. Ask them about themselves. People love to talk about themselves. Where they live, where they came from before that, what they do for a living, etc.
9. Ask where they got their name from. A relative? A famous actor? A character in literature, the Bible, a movie? Named for a place?
10. The old days before computers.....
11. The future. The days when things will be better.
12. Common problems:
13. Time management
14. People who borrow things
15. In-laws
16. Aging family members
17. Dealing with teenagers
18. Dealing with store clerks with attitudes, accents, lack of knowledge, etc.
19. Tips on shopping
20. Tips on doing something smarter or better
21. Trying to keep a clean house
22. Trying to find things around the house, only to have to buy it again
23. Amazing coincidences
24. Your experiences
25. Travel. Where you've been. Where you'd like to go. Where to stay away from.
26. Useful, polite warnings.
27. Food. Favorite foods, least favorite foods, preparation of food.
28. Restaurants
29. Places to go for entertainment
30. Favorite books, authors.
31. Favorite movies. Least favorite movies.
32. Famous actors.Their lives, their marriages, their work.
32. Science and technology. Mysteries of the universe.
33. Fun gadgets.
34. Crime - new high tech crimes, identity theft, spamming, etc.
35. Computer problems.
36. Dating problems. Who to date, who not to date, logistics, who pays? how to find the right person? Serious, not serious.
37. Houses. Designs, layouts, good plans, bad plans
38. Locations - where to live
39. Real estate prices, the market
40. The national economy. The cycles, indicators and barometers, speculation on the future. What the experts say will happen.
41. The international economy. Trade, cycles, trends, how wars and other global events affect the international economies.
42. The past - what has changed since the old days
43. The future - what will it be like in the future. What has to happen first.
44. Progress. The balance of good vs. bad, and how it changes.
45. Astronomy.
46. Sports - pick any sport, discuss the players, players salaries, promising new players, old records, players shifting from one team to another, a teams chances at winning this year, etc.
47. Favorite pastimes - collecting something, Carpentry, doll-making, painting, etc
48. Music. Your favorite musical recording artists. Favorite concerts you've seen in the past. Concerts you want to see in the future. Trends in music.
49. Gardening - tips and tricks. Mistakes.
50 Cars. Favorites. Cars you've owned. Cars you want. Prices of cars. Quality. Changes over time. Styles, trends. reliability. Gas mileage.
51. American Idol. Your favorites, etc.
52. Reality shows on TV
53. Soaps on TV. What is happening in your favorite daytime dramas
54. Kids. Cute things they say. Their actions. The trials and tribulations of raising them.
55. The school system. Where it's working. Where it's not. Where is it heading?
56. Privacy. Do we have as much as before? Is it threatened? How?
57. The art of conversation itself. People don't talk to each other anymore. The communication problems we all share.
58. Speaking different languages. learning new languages - which to pick? Dealing with accents
59. Strange coincidences you've noticed. In your life, in the world.
60. Fringe science - UFO's, Aliens, Ghosts, Lochness Monster, Chupacabra, Yeti, Bigfoot, sea monsters, demons, etc.
61. Time travel. Problems it presents. Is it possible? Has it already happened?
62. The occult: Witchcraft. History of occult. believers vs non believers. Spells. Book of Shadows.
63. Playing a musical instrument. Which instruments? How long? How taught? Favorites? Problems? Techniques? Equipment issues?
64. Sex. Trends or what is socially acceptable and how that has changed over time. Different types. Promiscuity.
65. Sex - Gender transitioning, Gay-lesbian community, social stigmas, new options.
66. Internet affairs. Ones you know about or have had. Lessons learned. Opportunities for finding a mate, meeting people.
67. Illnesses of the world, illnesses and how they have changed and evolved over time.
68. Current state of health care in this country vs world healthcare.
69. Drugs, pharmaceuticals. Problems with them. New ones coming out.
70. Photography. Your experiences, favorite cameras, techniques.
72. Taxes. Changes and trends. Tips to lessen taxes.
73. Running a business. Hiring people, firing people, setting up offices. traps to avoid, challenges. Getting customers, advertising, marketing, selling, competition, pricing, product problems, distribution, management, labor, unions, government regulations, safety.
74. Planned obsolescence in manufactured products.
75. Extended warrantees on cars and other items you buy.
76. Love relationships. Mistakes made. Lessons learned. How to start them. How to end them. How to find someone, etc.
77. Pets. Your favorite species and types. Favorite pet stories. Cute things, funny things.
78. Jokes. Humerous stories. Careful here though -
79. Chicken Soup for the Soul stories. It's a whole series of books filled with short stories that touch the soul. Read a couple and use those stories.
80. Fears. Everyone has fears of some sort or another. Not everyone will reveal them to someone else, but if you have established a rapport with a person, this is a topic. They can be reasonable, or unreasonable fears. They can be personal or general across people in your family, company, country or the world today.
81. Mental illness. There are a lot of aspect to this. Clinical trends, personal experiences, etc.
82. Career aspirations. Someday, I'd like to do THAT for a living, etc..
83. Trends in business such as offshore outsourcing, multi-branding, etc.
84. Immigration. This is a big issue, and some of it is politically charged, so be careful
85. Conspiracy theories. Weather control, who really shot JFK?, government cover ups, etc.
86. Urban legends.
87. Gangs, and organized crime
88. Violence on TV, in movies and how that is reflected in the real world.
89. The number of people in prison. How that differs between America and other countries.
90. Pollution and saving the environment.
91. Global warming. The evidence and the effects.
92. Preparing for natural disasters.
93. Space exploration.
94. The possibilities of intelligent alien lifeforms.
95. Space mining and exploration.
96. Literacy in the world today. Current status, how to fix it.
97. World hunger. How to help solve it.
98. World ignorance and lack of education. Where the inequalities are, ahow to help.
99. Living in the arctic or antarctic.
100. Read a blog that has some interesting topics in it, and use those in conversation.

Topics to avoid:
1. Politics
2. Religion
3. War
4. Racial Issues
5. Your own income, or the other person's income.
6. Your own medical problems and aches and pains.

Ironically, although common sense tells us to avoid these topics because they lead to passionate feelings, and clashes and confrontations, it is precisely those reasons that make them fascinating topics. You can have some very stimulating conversations
on these topics as long as you know the people you are talking with and have the skills to approach these subjects in an open-minded fair minded manner so that no-one's feelings are hurt and no-one's perspective is insulted. But that takes some skill.
So unless you are adept at walking the fine line of diplomacy without getting bogged down in dogma, doctrine, opinion, and agendas, or unless you are good enough friends with the other person that they will forgive your trespasses and missteps,it's probably better to just avoid these subjects.
Talking about your income or another person's income can be very tricky if they are far apart either way. Emotions are engaged with this topic, and generally speaking the other person will usually think they are underpaid and you are overpaid regardless of what the amounts actually are, so it's best to just avoid the topic when possible.
As for the last one, it's amazing how many people want to talk about nothing more than their aches and pains and medical conditions. But the simple fact is that no one but your doctor want to hear about them. There is nothing quite as tedious as hearing someone go on and on about their litany of complaints about their aches and pains.

Always remember that some people just want to be left alone. Or they might just be in a mood where they want to be left alone. Learn to recognize the telltale signs if you don't want to be taken for someone trying to sell them something. Move on to someone else. There are lots of people just dying to meet someone like you who knows how to have a friendly, meaningful conversation.

What is your opinion on this?

First Band Performance Getting Closer...

Well, the date of the first performance of The Val Serrie Project is getting closer. It will be on Sept 30th - only 2 weeks away. So we only have 4 more practices. And tonight, 2 members couldn't make it.
The first performance will be at a neighborhood block party. Probably 100 people or so for this first outing.
It's going to be a tight squeeze for time between now and then. Tuesday night we had a bit of a photo session so I could gather some photos for the album cover, and the website, promotional materials, etc. My friend Deidre came over just as we were playing and I asked her to take a few pictures. She did a good job - I just wish she could have used the special filter that removes 30 pounds. You see three of these photos above. Most of them are of me while we were playing, but unfortunately there weren't very many of the other guys and most of them turned out to be too dark. The next few were ones I took of the guys before and after the practice. I really still need to take a bunch more of them while playing. I just need them under the lights, etc. Plus, Joe and Jason are the two better-looking guys in the band, so we need to make sure we have lots of pictures of them!


On rhythm guitar we have Joe Parr. He does a great job. He and I have been practicing every Thursday night for well over a year now so he could learn my songs to be able to do this band. It's been a lot of work, but it's worh it, I think. He sounds great! He also has in mind that he wants to create an album of original music of his own, and the album will be called "Thursday Nights With Val" in remembrance of our Thursday night sessions for so long. We practiced, but we also spent a lot of time just talking and telling stories. It's been great fun for both of us.

Then there is Sonny Snipes on bass. He is new to the bass, so he has some learning curve ahead of him for some of the trickier tunes, but he's done well to catch up on many of them so quickly. He does have a new Ibanez 5-string bass that has some great tone to it, so he's got a good head start.

The newest addition to the band is Jason Christenson. He is young, but he has some great drum chops, and he has a great attitude. Extremely polite, energetic, easy to get along with. Anyone who hears him is impressed. He's got a great talent for drumming and he is a fine addition to the Project.

The overall sound is getting there. It really helps that we are using backing tracks on CD to play against. These are tracks that I recorded as the original recordings for these songs, but now I have made special mixes in different forms, some with or without different instruments missing. It allows us to practice without all the members there, and for the live shows, it supplies the recorded parts that we don't have anyone to play. Background harmonies, dual guitar harmony leads, etc.
Joe said he was in some of the Austin bars the other night and found that we actually sound a little better than some of those he heard that night. At least on our stronger tunes.

We'll see how things go. I do hope everyone can make the next four crucial practices. We really need to go through this material a few more times. It's not simple stuff. It can be a little complicated in some places. We cover the gamut from rock, to jazz-rock fusion, to jazz, blues, acoustic, whatever. There is quite a variety for the show.

Steven Colbert - A Brave Comic Wit

Steven Colbert is probably a comic genius. He is also demonstrably fearless. His show is one of the few I watch now on TV, actually.
Steven was surrounded by an unfriendly group of very power powerful people - some of THE most powerful people in the country, or the world, even. Yet he had the unmitigated nerve to stand up at the White House Press Correspondents Association dinner and attack President Bush and the media leaders relentlessly through the use of his trademark deeply sarcastic wit. He pretends to be a staunch supporter of the president and the extreme religious right, and by supporting it shows exactly how flawed it is. In excruciatingly precise detail. It really was brilliant. And well done. And brave. I enjoyed it, and I think it may make some people stop and think a little about their position. I hope!

Below are just a few of the points he made during his speech.
~~~

"I am surrounded by the Liberal media. Except you, Fox News. You present both sides of the story. The president's side AND the vice president's side."

"If anybody needs anything at their tables, speak slowly and clearly into your table numbers and somebody from the N.S.A. will be right over with a cocktail."

"When the president decides something on Monday, he still believes it on Wednesday - no matter what happened Tuesday."

"So don't pay attention to the approval ratings that say 68% of Americans disapprove of the job this man is doing. I ask you this, does that not also logically mean that 68% approve of the job he's not doing? Think about it. I haven't."

"Now, I know there are some polls out there saying this man has a 32% approval rating. But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in "reality." And reality has a well-known liberal bias."

"So, Mr. President, please, pay no attention to the people that say the glass is half full. 32% means the glass -- it's important to set up your jokes properly, sir. Sir, pay no attention to the people who say the glass is half empty, because 32% means it's 2/3 empty. There's still some liquid in that glass is my point, but I wouldn't drink it. The last third is usually backwash."

"Everybody asks for personnel changes. So the White House has personnel changes. Then you write, "Oh, they're just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic." First of all, that is a terrible metaphor. This administration is not sinking. This administration is soaring. If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg!"

"I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message: that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound -- with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world."

"Though I am a committed Christian, I believe that everyone has the right to their own religion, be you Hindu, Jewish or Muslim. I believe there are infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior."

"I believe that the government that governs best is a government that governs least, and by these standards we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq."

"But the rest of you, what are you thinking, reporting on NSA wiretapping or secret prisons in eastern Europe? Those things are secret for a very important reason: they're super-depressing. And if that's your goal, well, misery accomplished."

"Over the last five years you people were so good -- over tax cuts, WMD intelligence, the effect of global warming. We Americans didn't want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out. Those were good times, as far as we knew."

"Let's review the rules. Here's how it works. The president makes decisions, he’s the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Put them through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know--fiction."

"Jesse Jackson is here, the Reverend. Haven't heard from the Reverend in a little while. I had him on the show. Very interesting and challenging interview. You can ask him anything, but he's going to say what he wants, at the pace that he wants. It's like boxing a glacier. Enjoy that metaphor, by the way, because your grandchildren will have no idea what a glacier is."

~~~
Colbert was relentless. At the end of the speech/performance, the president and first lady gave him a terse nod, without smiling, and walked off. It was very brave for Colbert to stand up to the powers that be like that. Most people would be afraid of the consequences of speaking out against such a regime, but apparently not him.
We all saw what happened to the Dixie Chicks when they spoke out against President Bush. They said they were embarrassed that President Bush was from Texas. They were pulled off the air, and their CD's were burned and destroyed. They were banned by all the Clear Channel radio stations across the country. That was 1200 stations for their genre. So they've had to make their living playing outside the country for the last few years since then. Effectively exiled.

I do hope there are no serious ramifications for him. Even though the Dixie Chicks are an example that speaks against it to a degree, I'd like to think we are not corrupt to that point, and that people can speak their mind without political retribution. In fact, I think there was something about that written up in our constitution somewhere, wasn't there? A "First Amendment" or something along those lines?
Oh, I don't know anymore - so many things have changed in the last few years.

The Politics of Pretty

The picture above is of Angelina Jolie, certainly one of the world's most beautiful women. The picture below is of Brad Pitt, her new husband, and probably one of the best-looking men around. These are very 'pretty people'.
Beauty has power in this society. Everyone strives for it. Many achieve it. People love the power and control it gives them over other people. They like the options. A beautiful woman can use it to filter out the less desirable men and just accept the most desirable men. The better-looking, rich, powerful, successful men that they want most.
We, as a society, give them that power. Here are pictures also of Catherine Zeta-Jones, another spectacular beauty I first saw her in The Mark of Zorro, and thought she was the most beautiful Latin woman I had ever seen. As it turns out - she is Welsh! Nevertheless, I have seen her in many movies since as her beauty continues unabated, even when pregnant, she was gorgeous.
And let's not forget a classic beauty. Raquel Welsh has been synonymous with extreme beauty and the concept of a sex symbol since the 1960's, and although she is older now, she is still stunningly beautiful. Not just beautiful for her age, but beautiful period - for any woman and age, any time. And yet, she is concerned about her appearance and has a few things to say about beauty. Raquel Welsh said "Having beauty is like having money in the bank, except that instead of gaining value over time, it diminishes over time. Time is the enemy of beauty." She said, "You get used to having the power and wealth that comes from beauty, but you have to face the fact that every day you are going to have a little less than the day before."

Why do we value beauty so highly? Let's face it, the effect of it wears off before too long. If you marry the most beautiful woman in town, eventually, the novelty of that wears off, and it is the person inside that counts. In fact, that happens rather quickly. Also, beauty is fleeting. Gone before you know it. For most of us, the signs of age begin appearing when we are around 30 years old. Considering that we are children until we are 20, that only gives a span of about 10 years out of a possible lifetime of say, 90 years when some significant number of people can enjoy being attractive to the opposite sex and enjoy having the power and options that come with that.

Sexual Harrassment
One of the most politically-charged aspects of the power of beauty in our modern society revolves around sexual harrassment. In days gone by, and still in some patriarchal societies around the world today, men have treated women as beautiful belongings, and as part of the priviledges of power and position.

President Clinton was hardly the first political leader to have sexual favors from a young woman impressed with her personal, private sexual access to a powerful man.

Over the past years, it was very common for men to use their position in a company to get sexual favors from women, and for women to use their sexual favors to advance their career. I personally do NOT condone or encourage sexual relationaships with other people at the workplace for several reasons.

Normally, sexual harrassment is considered a women's issue, and it's all about the woman that is being harrassed sexually by a male boss who is using his higher position to leverage sexual favors. That certainly happens and it is a bad thing, but I'd like to offer a slightly different perspective on why it's a bad idea.

First, it puts both the people involved at a disadvantage, and secondly, it puts the OTHER people in the office at a disadvantage, and thirdly, it affects the productivity and efficiency, and the potential legal liability or even the survival of the company itself.

For example: what if the woman does not want to give sexual favors to get ahead and yet is forced to? And what if an older, less attractive woman in the same office is willing to give sexual favors for advancement, but is not desireable enough to get the offer? And what if the man in the higher position has sex with a beautiful young woman, but then she uses that to blackmail him into doing her bidding, giving raises, higher positions, etc. or she will report him to the senior management - or to his wife? Before the event happens, the man might have been in control, but once it happens, the control shifts to the woman. SHE now holds all the cards. What if there is a misinterpretation of sexual harrassment (deliberate or not) and there is a lawsuit that cripples the company or even puts it out of business entirely? There are consequences all around. From a morality standpoint, it is wrong to press your advantage over another person, regardless of the source of your advantage, whether it is your position in a company, or your physical beauty, or whether you have information that can damage someone else. But even the moral implications notwithstanding, just from a purely practical, logical, and risk-management perspective, it is simply better to shop somewhere else for a potential mate.


Yet we are forced to acknowledge that the workplace is the primary place where adults of similar background and social status meet each other on a regular basis. They can meet the other person, know their marital status, know their personality, and have the relationship grow over time from friendly to something more if they are compatible, because they have a reason to be talking and interacting. If you remove that, then that leaves bars as the number one place for finding a mate. And most people will tell you that is not an ideal place for finding a soulmate.
So if the workplace has the opportunities, and the best picks, then how do you avoid the minefield of sexual harrassment problems?

It has been said many times that sexual harrassment is not about sex, it's about power. I agree. However, I would suggest that the power-play is probably not one-sided. Certainly the boss can have power over the employee, but also the beautiful can have power of the ones who are attracted to that beauty.

Do you know what the real definition of 'sexual hararassment' is? For a woman, it is unwanted sexual advances made by a man toward her. Do you know what the definition of 'flirting' is? It could be said that it is welcome sexual advances made by a man toward her.

Therefore, the real difference between flirting and sexual harrassment is entirely dependent upon whether his advances are welcome or not - which is largely based upon whether she finds the man attractive or not.

Can you imagine how much pressure that puts on a man? He has to know ahead of time if he is good-looking enough to be allowed to talk to a woman he likes. It's VERY tricky - especially in the workplace. And of course, since that is where many of us spend 90% of our waking hours, then that is the place we are more likely to see people of the opposite sex.

If a guy is really interested in a girl at work, and he walks up to her and asks her for a date, if he is good-looking enough, he might get the date, and maybe sex, and maybe a long term relationship with the girl of his dreams. But if he is not good-looking enough, then he might be charged with sexual harrassment, he could get sued, and certainly fired, and, since that kind of information travels to prospective employers like wildfire through references and reputation, it might even destroy his whole career. The stakes are really high!

Unfortunately, there is no place the guy can go to get an objective, standardized, fair assessment rating of his attractiveness ahead of time, so he can manage his risk. There is no blood test that gives the attractiveness rating. The attractiveness factor by which he will be judged is entirely subjective, and relates only to the personal taste of the woman that he wants to ask. Essentially, he has to know her, and know her attitude and tastes in men before he can even approach her to start a conversation like that. He even has to know her mood, because what might be acceptable on Tuesday morning at 10am, might be unacceptable on Thursday at 3pm, depending upon how her moods might be at the time. Did I mention this is tricky for men?

On the other hand, I have told my daughter to be careful who she ends up dating, because you can fall in love with almost anyone. If you get close enough to another person where they start to share their spirit and their energy with you, you will see the essential goodness and value in them, and you can fall in love with that. And most people have that inner core of goodness and value and a certain percentage of higher spiritual being within them. That is where love comes from - it is when your inner spiritual being touches theirs and energy is transferred.

Have I ever met anyone who I was attracted to based on personality rather than just looks? Of course I have. Many times.

But I think I look at people differently than most others look at people.

A friend of mine looks at women as if they are a statue. A frozen image of relative beauty posed for eternity in that second, and empty inside. The inside is mostly irrelevent to him. The shape of her body parts and face are what counts to him. He does a mental assessment of which good attributes might make up for the other attributes that are not so good, ("She has an ugly face, but her body is perfect..." etc.) and then makes an overall assessment. And his standards get lower as he gets older, I might add.

Proust once said, "Let's leave beautiful women to men without imagination."

In my own case, because of an adventure I had in Greece in 1989, I firmly believe in the fact that we live multiple lives. When I came back from that trip, I read everything I could on reincarnation, etc. and learned quite a bit about it.
The reason this is relevent is because I see people, not as bodies, but as spiritual beings currently inhabiting a body. I see a child and realize that not so long ago, they were probably a wise old person, and that wisdom is locked inside that young child's body even now. So I respect everyone at all ages. After all, the current age is only one detail of their long life, - it's like judging a person based upon the time of day on one specific day, when you need to think of the whole lifetime.

I look at a person and I see what they looked like as a child, and what they will look like when they are old. I see them dressed up in their finest clothes going to a social event, and dressed down to their sloppiest clothes for painting. I see them fat and thin. Drunk and sober. Happy, sad, embarrassed and proud. I try to see the WHOLE person in all their shapes, sizes, ages, and moods. I do this naturally all the time. It takes some imagination and observation, but It helps me understand who they really are.

With most people, I am impressed. What they lack in one area, they more than make up in others. People are flexible. They grow emotionally, and intellectually. They are ALWAYS more than they appear to be at first, and over time, they will become even more than that. There is a majesty in people's ability to become more than they are. This touches on the main reason for life itself. To grow. To improve. To become more than we are. If someone wants to know the core meaning of life, that's most of it, right there.

So, yes. There is much to appreciate about a person besides the current shape of their body. A homely woman can put an orchid to shame with the beauty of her love for another, and a man of small stature can tower above giants if his ideas are big enough. And both can be more worthy than the heroes of history if they have the compassion and integrity to match their best ideals. When some people will sacrifice their own needs for another, or sometimes even their own life for another, we can see the incredible nobility that lies within all of us waiting for the chance to shine.

When you look at people this way, the mere shape of a face is trivial in this larger context.