Every now and then they even convince me, for a few fleeting moments, that I’m being “weird” and “overly-sensitive.” As you wish.

I just tried for the third and final time to upload a video of my one year old dancing onto the site I lovingly call “YouRube” so my family could check it out in full. You see, the file is too large to email, and I’d prefer not to snail mail them a DVD or wait until I see them to show it to them. What is this, 2005 for Chrissakes? My phone, however, offers a handy-dandy way to publish videos directly to YouRube, so I decided to give it a go.

Alas, after much hand-wringing, eyebrow-furrowing, and beating of breasts (my own, not those belonging to my eye-rolling bride this time), the vid will not be viewable there by my family or anyone. It keeps getting rejected, I’ve now been informed, because there is some obscure song playing on the TV faintly in the background.

Before being emailed by the super YouRube ‘puter, undoubtedly transmitting to us doe-eyed “Americants” from servers based in The Seychelles, I searched in vain for reasons as to why my video wasn’t “available in [my] country” as my YouRube interface kept admonishing me. Finally the emails arrived letting me know I had possibly “violated the rights of Sony, EMI, Harry Fox Agency” among others. I was dumbstruck but I respect the rule of law, especially when it comes to stealing others’ intellectual property. Hey, there’s a real rash of that going around as I can tell you firsthand. Even as silly as it seems that Sony or EMI or Harry Fox could possibly lose even a penny due to my thoughtless and clearly evil actions, I decided to find a different manner of distributing the vid to the in-laws. To the contrary, I would argue that exposing this song to anyone would hugely benefit the giant corporations. I would suggest that less than .0001% of the earth’s population has ever heard this song (it’s too bad, too, cause it’s catchy as hell. Think Psy only without the anti-”Yankee” bent.) No matter. Why fight city hall? I can only comply in this instance. It’s YouRube’s ball and court. Their rules.

So off I meandered on my merry way to a news site and the top story there was: “Video: Syrian Rebels Make Child Behead Prisoner.” The video is housed for any in “this country” to see..wait for it…wait for it…on YouRube! (What? you guessed on some obscure terrorist website emanating from The Seychelles? I would suggest you guessed correctly).

Since I’m not a super big fan of films featuring Syrian children (don’t ask) and can live without seeing snuff films, I forced myself to view the beginning frames of the clip just to verify it was, indeed, viewable on YouRube. I’m told it goes on to show a boy in Syria beheading a prisoner as “rebels” look on. The account I read says the video goes on to show, you know, the usual in fare we’ve come to expect and even love about our Middle East peace loving brethren: dancing with the severed head, chants of “Allahu Akbar”, you know…your run of the mill Sunday afternoon goings-on in Anytown, Shariaville.

So we have on the one hand Google/YouRube protecting the interests of some cabal of international mega-corporatations because, you know, who can say how many people will refuse to buy a downloaded copy of the truncated Italian Language Sing-A-Long “Eh Cumpari” played through the TV in the background of one of my videos because they can get it for free from me! But children purportedly mutilating living people to death to the amusement and celebration of ghouls in some far off dusty land Anderson Cooper insists I should give a shit about and some money to in order to finance the “independence” of? No problem.

Apparently YouRube can’t devise an algorithm to filter out beheading vids. I just searched for the term “beheading” on YouRube. Boy if you don’t have hours of fun to check out there.

Hey, it’s their company and platform and they can make whatever rules they want. But when we live in a world where a vid of a dancing baby is verboten but blood-lust Satanic propaganda is happily shuffled along by our technocratic masters to the head of the line, it’s no wonder why an ever-so-small minority of us are starting to wake up and say, “Maybe America is too far gone to even save. New Zealand anyone?” Maybe James Cameron has it right. Hey Jimmy, happen to have a spare 3,000 square feet you care to rent out to the Noonan Six (think “Jackson Seven,” only with zero dancing ability, impossibly nappier hair, and less Daddy issues, for now).

Please stay tuned for the video version of this story which will be posted on…Vimeo, a video sharing service emanating from The Seychelles no doubt…on the good side (for now).

Beware the propaganda machine. It’s starting to fire on all cylinders. Is this what those wascally Mayans were cluing us in on? Maybe they figured there would be no need to continue with their piddly little calendar because Mother Google’s calendar could just take its place in 2012?

Protect and subsidize the globalist mega-corporations? Check.

Push out the messages they want us to see and block the ones they don’t? Check.

Make The Americants believe we live in the golden age of information and free thought while doing it? Check, please.

Heaven help us.

I have to go and update the other perceived bastion of intellectual free thought, Facebook. Until next time…keep on rockin’ in the free world!

Note: The terms “YouRube” and “Americants” and any and all variations thereof are marks of Mike Noonan. Copyright 2012, All Rights Reserved Worldwide. Any use of those terms without the expressed written consent of Mike Noonan is strictly prohibited. I mean it. I really, really do. There will be gnashing of teeth and beating of breasts if you steal them.

I left the song on, however, to gauge what commentary would ensue. Of course, the reaction was negative, and the charge was led by the eldest, Elise. She complained that the song was “weird.”

“Your music is weird,” I fired back, even though, as I said, it was hardly one of my favorite songs. “That’s the way life works: Parents hate their kids’ music, and kids hate their parents’ music.” Mere seconds later, as if on cue, the innate generational disconnect was illustrated to perfection.

Instead of our customary route, I had diverted on my appointed mission to drop off a critical letter for my company. Elise, oh she of eagle eyes and a forked tongue, spotted the detour first and inquired as to the reason for our departure from our routine. “We have to swing by the post office.”

“Why?” she wondered.

“Because I have a very important letter to drop off and I want to make sure it gets to the recipient, so I want to drop it off at the post office,” I explained.

Elise: “What is it?”

Me: “A letter to a lawyer.”

“We have lawyers?” Elise queried.

“My company does, yes,” I replied.

Elise: “How many?”

Me: “Two. Too many.”

Elise: “What does a lawyer do?”

With that Elise, and the first middle child, Grace, and I embarked on a discourse about what lawyers do. Invariably there was discussion, then, about lawmaking, and how the lawyers I deal with are the ones who study the laws that lawyers who have conned us into making them into “lawmakers” on the federal, state, county, and local level create, and help people and companies like mine navigate and abide by those laws.

Once we emerged from that thicket, Elise asked, “Don’t, like, lawyers make a lot of money?”

I winced. I detest when my children fixate on money. I explain to them how important money is but I never want them to desire it, to love it, or to obsess about it. Money is fleeting and even deceiving. Money is a tool that, when applied properly, can help us on our journey. It is not the destination. I’m quick to always tell them that it is nothing to pine after.

Events like Hurricane Sandy in New York are always useful to me in order to frame and reinforce that argument. “Things” and “money” are so easily lost. Sometimes, in life, they literally go Poof! In an instant: Gone.

“Lawyers normally are well compensated,” I said to Elise.

“They make, like $1,000 a year?” she asked. It always blows my mind when a kid has no concept of how much things cost. How can that be? How can a 9-year-old not have some concept of money? Maybe I need to revisit my “money training” techniques afterall.

“No, honey, they make a lot more than $1,000 a year,” I explained. “Try more like $200,000, $500,000, $700,000 a year. Many lawyers make millions of dollars a year.”

Grace perked up from the far back seat of our Honda Odyssey and offered, “They do? They probably wear golden tuxedos and chiz like that.”

“What did you say?” I asked worriedly. I had never heard the word chiz and thought, for an instant, that I had heard my sweet 7 year old’s mostly pristine mouth utter something that sounds like chiz but regardless of what chiz meant, it had to be far more vile and closer to the word I thought she had spewed in the first place.

“Chiz,” she repeated.

“Where did you learn that word?” I probed. My mind whirled with the horrific possibilities. Did a Lil Wayne album fall into their little hands somehow despite my well-fortified parental defenses? Surely he opines about donning “Golden Tuxedos” and “making it rain” with his “golden tuxedo showers.” Or, did that demon nympho creep Ke$ha whisper-whine it in one of her ridiculous songs played ad nauseum on radio stations that cater to 43-year-old women and ones catering to 13-year-olds (how and why did that start happening? Why is the generational gap slimming for middle aged women and their teen daughters?)

Where did I fail these children? My language on the home front is, shall we say, colorful and descriptive, but I rarely sway from my repertoire of what I call FASS: F@$k, Ass, Son of a Bitch, and S#!t. They know those words are strictly off limits and available only to me and their 12.5% Italian-blooded mother for generous usage…so much so, that we’re 10 dogs and 14 tattoos short of completing our devolution into becoming Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne.

But where in the world did this undoubtedly satanic word Chiz derive from, I agonized? From which stinking crevasse did this guttural noise rise up like so much noxious sewer gas to poison and corrupt my daughters?

At long last the tension was relieved. “It’s from the show ‘Victorious,’” the two girls answered in unison. I exhaled. ‘Victorious’ is a perfectly inane but harmless show on Disney channel. Not every show is as innocuous as that one on that channel, but that “Victorious”, from my experience, largely is.

And then, the ultimate answer was handed down from the 7 and 9-year-old: “Chiz”, as defined by my children and relayed to them from the show “Victorious” on Disney channel, means…

“Stuff.”

Thank God.

When the dust settled, Elise broke the silence. “Dad, you really need to chillax with all the punishment stuff lately.”

And the generational gap widened a bit farther.

Consolidation in the industry has hit no other brand as hard as The Loop (well, except for the ones that have been killed off, of course). From the mid-90s on it, like most other radio stations, has changed hands multiple times. It was announced last week that for the second time in less than 2 years and the third time in less than a decade, it will change hands again.

The last two transactions all but killed the joint. Today, with all due respect to the folks who are working there, it’s a shadow of its former self. I have to wonder if the next sale isn’t the death knell for the once proud place?

I was honored to have walked into the Loop for 8 years (If you missed me, no sweat. It was usually pretty late at night. On a Sunday. You had little use for REO’s “Ridin’ The Storm Out” at that hour, trust me. ) I was also honored to have been part of a campaign to gauge interest among rank-and-file Chicagoans in The Loop. About 6 months before it was sold in 2011, my biz partner Matt Dubiel and I asked the question: Does anybody still care about The Loop? We wanted to know if it was still relevant. We wanted to know if people cared enough to stand up and stake their claim if they cared. We wanted to know if people believed, as I did and do, that they could and should have a say in the future of institutions like The Loop. We wondered if things like The Loop should be relegated as mere pawns in some “portfolio,” or if, like the FCC license for 97.9 FM, The Loop should be public treasures, to be afforded almost “landmark status,” and its corporate minders would be the stewards of it.

If you didn’t see the video then, here it is. It’s weird how 20 months gave passed and, well, here we go again.

As you can see from the comments below the vid on http://SaveTheLoop.com, we heard from many who said, resoundingly, “Yes!” to the aforementioned questions.

But like many things in life, the task of what to do about it seemed so daunting to all involved. The talks we pursued about funding a fan-driven takeover of The Loop dried up after a few fervent weeks. Our cocktail napkin conversations with “money men” stayed on the cocktail napkins sadly. Oddly, though, it seems like only yesterday that I was making calls and walking around in the late-winter sun in my backyard dialing for dollars. I remember one such call with a guy who brokers radio station deals like it happened 5 minutes ago. He told me I was “crazy.” He said what we wanted to achieve “couldn’t be done.” He intimated that fans and “little guys” wouldn’t be able to get on the same playing field as the “big boys.” He used words like “impossible,” and “can’t.”

Many people simply feel they can’t affect change. That they can’t do big things. That many, if not most things in this world, are too big for them to control.

We all, myself included, ultimately did nothing.

The Loop was gobbled up by a private-equity fund and its supposed “radio guys.” Hey, tip your cap to them for this: At least they did something.

Who will end up with what I consider to be an integral piece of Chicago history? Will it be restored or finished off? Broken up, and lost forever?

More important, is anyone watching, listening, and caring?

Perhaps most important of all: Do you care that your media, information, and entertainment outlets are homogenized, outsourced, automated, and consolidated into the hands of just a (relative) few banks and “funds”?

Did you know that?

(If not, no biggie. Just keep on keeping on. We’ll wake you when it’s over. It shouldn’t be long at the rate we’re going.)

So who will it be to next own The Loop?

Will it be Cumulus, Emmis, Hubbard, Entercom, or some other broadcasting behemoth with “properties” and far-flung media “assets.”

Will they take care to preserve and even make great again the once mighty Loop? Will they ask you what you think?

Will you hear and answer if they do?

Finally, what will it take for the banks and hedge funds to realize that the true gold in its coffers is not in the piece of paper given to them by the FCC to use a “frequency” on the radio and is, instead, in the brands that have occupied those frequencies en route to making an indelibly emotional connection with fans’ hearts, minds, and souls?

Here’s hoping that whoever ends up with the iconic Loop understands the power, responsibility, and tremendous opportunity that will come in the box alongside the FCC license they are likely more interested in buying.

Facebook and Twitter have replaced the town gossip, and that’s a shame. In simpler times, for hundreds of years, maybe thousands, the town gossip was a fixture in every town in America…in the world. In my mind the town gossip is named “Betty Lou”. She was the loudmouth in town you never told a thing to lest it be spread like wildfire throughout the tri-county area. Sometimes the more wily among the town folk would use this to their advantage. Every town and neighborhood had someone like Betty Lou: A busybody who made everyone’s business, their business, and then everyone else’s business.

Sometimes the rumor mill would have one whipped into such a froth that someone would fume at that nosy Betty Lou. Behind her back of course. To her face, one always felt the need to keep up a certain semblance of decorum. Or appearances.

Fake though it was, it was also what separated us from lesser societies. We were better than they, we rationalized, because we were civil. Well, the societal field has been leveled.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Face-Monster and the unheralded and most unnamed investors behind Twitter (I know of but one, a Saudi Prince who inexplicably gave the company $300 extra LARGE within the past year) have lopped the head off of civility. It is dead and gone and shall not return ever.

Both platforms are incredibly powerful and could be incredibly fun. And neither particularly are for my money. Both are usually filled with such negativity that the fun factor has been utterly drained from them. Both allow the most base among us to have their often vitriolic stream-of-consciousness commentary broadcast before the world. The world, for its part, reads, watches, consumes. Both services could bring the world so much good. And they may.

I won’t be seeing much of it if it happens at the rate things are devolving on what I am starting to consider “anti-social media.”

In generations past if you had a gripe against someone you could trash talk them to your immediate circle, but that about as far is it went. You could add salt to the wound and use Betty Lou’s nefarious gabby talents to broadcast your message father and wider. “Letters to the Editor” were another option. But beyond that, your ability to spread the word was limited.

Now you can contact the object of your scorn directly and leave a permanent digital record of your discontent. You can call them names. You can threaten them. You can hurt them. I would say that in the wrong hands this power could be abused and even dangerous, but I’d be many years too late for that warning.

Perhaps you saw recently that Spike Lee took it upon himself to re-tweet the address of George Zimmerman, Treyvon Martin’s alleged murderer. Trouble was, he passed along the address of the wrong George Zimmerman-to 300,000 people. The frightened elderly Florida couple with the same surname as Zimmerman had to literally flee for their lives for several days. Lee was rightly castigated for the mishap, for which he reluctantly, and belatedly apologized. Good of him to put a bow on the story so we could move onto what Kimye had had for dinner that night at Mr. Chow. Never mind the fact that he was ostensibly aiding the modern-day lynching of another human being. In other words, he was saying, “Kill this person” to nut-job America. He was using Twitter to be the judge, the jury, and the executioner. To think that this came from someone who supposedly has been, for decades, speaking out about social and racial injustice in America is appalling. I haven’t seen too many people all that upset about that, not the least of which Twitter. Myspace had “Tom.” Even Facebook has a face and name to ascribe to it, even if it is the enigmatic, thoroughly unlikeable Zuckerberg. Who is there to say “Please, mindless zombie America, Tweet responsibly”, or even “Please don’t use our service to help fellow humans commit murder and other crime and acts of destruction and malfeasance”? Not a soul. Not so much as a chirp from Twitter.

In other Tweet news: a Chicago musician tweeted his own suicide recently. I didn’t know him, but I happened to see his tweet after someone in the know spread the word via (drumroll) Facebook…sort of. An acquaintance made mention of the local music community “letting down one of its own.” Something about the cryptic announcement of this middle man caught my eye and I jumped into the rabbit hole, finally ending up at this man’s final messages. His suicide message went something like this: “This is what the end looks like.” I clicked the link to the picture attached to the tweet. It had been taken down by then, but at one point in that 24 hour period, I came to discover, it was a picture of three enormous bottles of some pharmaceutical drugs…presumably sleeping pills. Displayed before the bottles were their blue capsuled contents piled sickeningly high. All of it carefully staged on a plate. It was a truly disturbing visage.

In one’s final, desperate moments, it must be of some comfort to know that technology has made it possible for you to leave a lasting narcissistic “F@$# You” to your so-called “Followers,” aka your friends, family, acquaintances, and fans by searing into their brains forever the fact that you were in so much pain you have decided to snuff out a life of just three-decades or thereabouts.

Thank God Twitter has given us such power. The ability to hurt others from beyond the grave is a gift. What would Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold have done with the power of Twitter to help magnify their demonic killing spree? Could they have turned Columbine into…so much more?

Twitter has helped spur revolutions, I get it. It has been the lone lifeline for information during natural disasters. It has enormous potential to be used for good; it is all absolutely true. I even truly believe it is a space you should occupy and develop for your business. However, to expect that one will encounter much more on most days than utter banality and meanness is foolhardy.

My Facebook feed is getting slimmer by the day. Why? I’ve figured out that if you “unfriend” someone, it makes them sad and angry. They lash out. You go from virtual “friends” to real-life enemies. Who needs that? I’ve found it’s far easier to “hide” the news updates of people who I want to ignore. On digital “paper” we’re “friends.” In truth, I have blocked them from my view. Out of sight, out of mind. I can’t recommend this practice enough.

It takes a lot for me to do that. Being a negative creep, however, does the trick every time, when day after day your messages you willfully pulse out to the world are grievances and victimhood; Rarely anything constructive or entertaining. Just an endless litany of complaints. Who can take it? Why would one choose to?

Is this what so-called “social” media has devolved into, where the best you can hope for from some people is a picture of their juevos rancheros with a some exotic-labeled cerveza positioned behind it like it’s some still life photograph titled “Cholesterol and Beer. BFF.”, and endless rants about home owners association rules and how it sucks to have to work today and how its unfair that this happened and not right that that happened?

Block. Hide. Unsubscribe.

I go to great lengths to avoid jerky, negative people in my personal life. Why I let them into my daily life for the past 4 years while I, like others, have wrestled with the utilitarian and marketing uses for social media platforms is beyond me.

I hope civility returns someday to our society. If not, I’ll pine for the “good-old days” like some old codger and look for more ways to barricade myself from the outside world and bathe myself in nostalgia and positive light.

We can be anything we choose to be on the interwebs: You can be a super hero here. You create a completely different reality for yourself. I never encourage others to lie and don’t practice it as a life-rule to moderate success, but you can change the way your story is written, seen, and related online.

Why in the world would you CHOOSE to be anything other than the best projection of yourself? Why wouldn’t you take the extraordinary step, maybe, to concoct some double life that would make those who know you in real-life belly laugh? Why would one CHOOSE to be so miserable and, even worse, leave a record of it on display forever? So permanent. So devastating. Why would you choose that for yourself?

A critic of my company’s purchase of Q101 sent a message recently via Facebook. Of all of the things she could have written, this is what she chose as her first outreach to us…to me. She can use social media for anything in the world, anything, and this is what she chooses to use it for. (I’ll add here that this person is presumably at the dawn of her radio career, a business so notorious for its cut-throat competitiveness and flattening career trajectory that there is an adage almost all newbies learn as a rite of passage: “You see everyone twice in this business: Once on the way up, and once on the way down.” Unfortunately, in the business these days, people aren’t really going “up” and “down” anymore. More like “here” and “there.” But the reality remains: Burning a bridge is beyond foolhardy in this business. I always say what takes a minute and feels good for 10 follows you around for a lifetime. It’s never worth it to Molotov cocktail the bridge you just passed over.) In what may have been one of the finer acts of idiocy for this entitled Millennial that week, this woman dispensed with the possibility that we’ll ever work on a cardboard sign together let alone anything of merit and note by copying and pasting into the Facebook Message field:

leech/lēCH/
Verb:
Habitually exploit or rely on: “he’s leeching off the abilities of others”.
Synonyms:
bloodsucker

I let that sink in for a moment. Someone I don’t know from Eve in the media industry took time out of her day to purposely message a the owner of a media organization and insult them. At least she had the gumption to have her name and picture attached. However, it is a startling example of how far people have sunk in their misuse of what could be powerful communications (read: marketing) tools.

As for whether we are, in fact, bloodsukers, that may be true for other reasons I’m not aware of nor thinking of at the moment, but it makes no difference to me: Whether we are or we aren’t, there was a time when a leech could suck blood without being called out by name. There was civility. There was honor and code.

“Social Media” has done away with it by giving people with malformed maturity levels a heretofore unseen loudspeaker and mainline to gain direct access to you, whether you’re named “Mark Cuban” or Mark “The Cuban.” I don’t think that’s a good thing, actually. The result is what we now have: The ultimate in entitlement culture (or lack thereof), where every single thought, feeling, and emotion, no matter how silly, ill-founded, or completely untrue, MUST be broadcast at all times. This is madness. For the few of us left in the world who feel that some, if not most, words, thoughts, and feelings should go unspoken, unrevealed, and non-emoted, this is the pinnacle of stupidity.

But we do have choices in the matter. One is to use social media to create the reality we want. Another is to blot out the foolishness that abounds and surround oneself only with light.

On second thought, I won’t be doing away with using these platforms for good, after all. Knowing what I know, that one can create a parallel reality, henceforth I shall carry myself as a caped crusader who’s super power is, among other things, having the other-worldly ability to stop cold people’s comments, pettiness, and ideological crusades. The very second they appear to be veering off in a negative direction, I will then administer a punishing flurry of “blocks,” “hides,” and “unsubscribes” to finish off my vanquished foe.

I shall be called…”The Leech.” Instead of blood, I shall fatten myself consuming only positive info and energy.

See you on Facebook, friend (or will I? Mwahahahahahaha!)

And that is a major mistake.

I offer up this story as proof that you should rethink that stance and, instead, pay your receptionist six figures or more and train them to be the living, breathing proxy of yourself (that’s, of course, if the CEO can’t sit up front, which I recommend). Radical?  Bah.  Check this out:

My wife and I took our 4 month old son for his checkup recently. We love our doctor: He was our first daughter’s pediatrician and we have religiously taken the other three to him. In fact, we have followed him around the area and drive about 25-30 minutes one way to see him, passing dozens of other, closer doctors no doubt.  Before the birth of our first child, we went around and interviewed pediatricians. Surely this is not only a hard-for-some-to-fathom first world, “white people’s problems” endeavor, but one unique to the nouveau riche wanna-be set we have lived among (and aspired to be like?) for the past decade.  Our doc emerged from the pediatric “All Valley Karate Championship” victorious and has worn the belt well.

He took good care of my first-born and then, sadly, he left the practice for parts unknown.  We had a second child but had become lax in our standards by then; so we stayed with the practice and bid him adieu.

After a few months of that, we were dissatisfied with the new set of doctors we encountered and left for another medical group nearby.  These doctors were deplorable.  One wrote a prescription for my daughter that the pharmacist at Walgreen’s refused to fill, as, it was explained to me, “it would kill a child.”  Something about a pesky decimal point being missing.  Apparently tour doc wrote the script for 5%, when a child’s dose should be .5%…

Amazingly, the guy who once took the extraordinary step of interviewing doctors while his first child was still in utero now tolerated doctors who wrote potentially fatal prescriptions!   I didn’t leave that practice until another doctor in the practice, during a phone call with me about my child’s, uh, er, irregularity, gave me the name of a laxative and said she wanted me to give it to my daughter for the “next year” and that they would re-evaluate her at that time. A laxative, for a year, for a 3 year old!  Sight unseen.  Over the phone.  Oddly THAT was the final straw and I stopped taking my chilluns to see these kooks.  Once again I set out to find our third doctor in 2 years.

I decided to put my fingers to work and researched the whereabouts of our original doctor.  Turns out he had set up his own practice in a town about 20 miles from our house.   A bit of hike, but this guy was the only dude I trusted with my kids, and the rest of the pack was clearly not making the grade.  We returned to his lovin’ arms and he helped us with our first two kids, plus my third and, recently, my fourth child.

On the day I brought my 4 month in for measurements and a round of shots, we got on the road a bit late.  Four month-olds and their 3 year-old brothers can be like herding cats, I’ve found.  We rolled into the office at 9:15 am for our 9:00 am appointment.  The 22-year-old receptionist was not too keen by our lateness.  “You are more than 10 minutes LATE. You may not be seen today,” she scowled.

“Uh, sorry. Yeah, we got on the road a bit late. Maybe you can pop back and talk to the doctor and let him know The Noonans are here?”  I replied.  I was taken aback by this young woman.

She disappeared and then returned a minute later. “Ok, the doctor can see you, but patients who are ON TIME are seen first.  You’ll have to wait.”

My wife pointed out that there were no other cars in the parking lot. That was a mistake. I don’t know why she takes such chances in life like tangling with such people.

“Trust me. There ARE patients back there, and they receive top priority because they were ON TIME,” she retorted.  They must have been airlifted into the facility.

No one was asking to leapfrog anyone else.  I honestly did feel badly for showing up late.  It’s people like us that can derail a whole day in a doctor’s office.  If the 9:00 is late, the effect can ripple and all of a sudden the 5:00 pm appointment happens at 6:00. I can dig it.

At the same time, I couldn’t believe the way this person was treating us.  I never say, or even allow myself to think, “Do you know WHO you are talking to?”  But in this case, I did allow myself to mull over our value to this doctor.  10 years (with an 18 month hiatus in there, admittedly) of visits. 3 kids. Now a fourth has joined the crew.  What were the Noonans worth to this doctor in annual visits?  $2k a year?  $5,000?

I honesty had no idea, but one thing was for certain: Neither did this girl who was sass talking us.  I’m quite sure she wasn’t thinking about much more than the fight she had with with her boyfriend the night before.  Or the car payment that was looming. Or that thing on Facebook that pissed her off.  Whatever it was, she certainly wasn’t thinking about preserving this doctor’s business, and making sure we continued to drive an hour round trip to see him every 2 months or so.

The terms “Lifetime Value” and “Customer Acquisition Costs” were probably never explained to her. She probably wouldn’t know an LTV from an MTV.

This is not to put her down, but to illustrate how ludicrous it is to put your least experienced foot forward.  Why put your business at risk?  Why in the world would you have the first person your customers meet, greet, or speak to be someone who is inexperienced about the product or services you sell, or inexperienced in the proper way to handle customer service situations?

Truth is, most businesses don’t even know they’re doing themselves such harm.  I wimped out and didn’t tell my doc about the experience.  For one thing, I didn’t want this woman to lose her gig.  I know its ridiculous to not help him and let him know this person could be doing his practice, his livelihood, irreparable harm.  When the words formed in my brain, my mouth just couldn’t spit them out.  I resolved to let him know if I ever had any other issues.  To date, I haven’t.

This is the best I can do: Tell the tale as a cautionary one for others.  I encourage you to put a highly-trained person and skilled “people” person as the first point-of-contact for your company.  But don’t stop there.  Mystery shop them often. Actually call as a customer and put them to the test.  Verify that they’re not only knowledgeable about you and your business, but they care about it beyond merely going through the motions to keep their job.  You’ve worked so hard to build your business; Now protect it.

Maybe paying him or her $100,000 a year is a bit of stretch.  Or maybe it isn’t.  You tell me:  How much does it cost to acquire your customers? To retain them?  From birth to age 18, are my four Noonan kids worth $100k to that doctor?  I’m quite sure.  How many referrals will we make over that span? I’m guessing a dozen.  Am I driving $1 Million Dollars to that business, lifetime?

Why risk losing that over one “affordably”-paid employee’s bad day?

I had the pleasure of seeing the three in what, sadly, I now know was the twilight of their career, at Charter One Pavilion in the fall of 2007. It was one of the best nights of music I can recall in the last decade, and perhaps ever. Adam Horovitz, Michael Diamond, and Adam Yauch were truly in their element, not only killing each and every song they played, but then hilariously bantering back and forth, joking, smiling, and playfully having the time of their lives (all the while dressed as one might expect “Captain Stubing” from “The Love Boat” might dress for a night on the lakefront). The thing everyone I know who loved the Beastie Boys loved most about them was the way they did things their way: That night in concert, they put on such a great show because they wanted to be there, they loved what they were doing, and, best of all, you got the feeling that if there were no one else there, they would have been acting the exact same way. It was a voyeuristic feeling, and it was as if we were looking in on them in a recording studio in Brooklyn. The only thing missing were copious amounts of weed, and Q-Tip and Biz Markie waiting in the wings, laughing along with them.

I also had the pleasure of brushing, ever so distantly and anonymously, with their greatness in 2001. A good friend of mine, Brian Jones, and I did a cheap, but, to us, fun mockumentary film called “The Academy.” A few people liked it. Many hated it. We didn’t care. We were doing things our way, and it was fun as hell. If you were at the Vic the night in March ’02 we premiered it, I hope you had a tenth of the fun we did.

We approached a multitude of folks to get the rights to use their music in our little independent film. One notable person I personally stalked was Mike Doughty from the band Soul Coughing. I went back and forth with him via email, in fan forums, I called him, and I even had a wonderful confrontation with him in the basement of the Double Door as he was entering to play a show there. That’s right: I bought a ticket just so I could get in his face (nicely). I had high hopes he’d come around.

This guy would not let us use his music. Which was fine. But he wouldn’t give us a “no,” and that drove me crazy. I pursued him for months. This guy took himself very seriously. It was a real bummer.

We got a few yeses, and some were very unexpected. One was from the Beastie Boys. Thanks to Brian’s hard work they granted us the use of a remix of “Hey Ladies.” Their rep noted, bewildered, that “they never allow this sort of thing.” We were thrilled…and it made Mike Doughty’s inability to even utter the words “no”, “yes”, or “screw you and die” via email, let alone to my face, seem like a distant memory. It restored my faith in people. The Beastie Boys carried themselves so much differently then seemingly every other celebrity, superstar, rap star…differently than anyone. Gotta love people who do things their way. That’s something I’ll always admire about them, and people like them, who have a little “Beastie” in them. Do it your way. Critics be damned.

I recall looking for the B-Boys second release, “Paul’s Boutique” it in the early 90s and had little luck. I was in one of my “format changing phases”: The nonsense anyone born before 2000 has likely gone through when a new format is created and you have to replace your albums with tapes, tapes with CDs, and, most recently, CDs with digital copies. “It’s out of print,” I was told. That blew my mind. That album was panned, even though it was clearly genius, because, for one thing, it was so far ahead of its time that it suffered the same fate as many creative and intellectual advances: People reject that which they cannot understand. Perhaps more important, though, the reason it was a commercial flop, at the time of its release, was because it was such a sonic and lyrical departure from the shallow, simplistic, and lowest-common-denominator humor of the first disc. Thank God Adam and the rest didn’t throw up their hands and give in. They said, “We’re doing this our way.” Rather than reverting to safer ground and putting out a third album that was a cookie-cutter rip off of the first-and taking the money, the sure thing, the easy route…they did it their way and continued to break new ground, following “Paul’s” up with one of the best albums of the last 25 years in my book, “Check Your Head.” To think that the trio then served up “Ill Communication” and “Hello Nasty” on the heels of their run of three straight pioneering compilations is mind-boggling (and even enough to make people like me forgive them for their final three efforts in recent years…though time is being kinder to “To The 5 Boroughs” than I ever thought it would. Methinks, “Make Some Noise” aside, the band’s “Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2.” disc will not stand up as well in the years to come, unfortunately, but it will not be counted against the band’s incredible resume I hope).

All told, as truncated as his life turned out to be, one would have to say that Yauch had a stretch of 30 years that, from the outside looking in, was as fun, accomplished, and influential as most humans could dream of enjoying.

A champion of the Tibetan cause and the Buddhist way of life, Adam Yauch surely exemplified this Buddhist phrase:

You can explore the universe looking for somebody who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and you will not find that person anywhere.

He did it for himself. He did it his way. If only we could all be so wise and so free.

R.I.P. MCA

Here’s the track those guys signed off on if you never heard the “Count Bass D” remix of “Hey Ladies.”

This video below struck a chord with me, and I hope you dig it as much as I did. It’s hardly classic “Rollins”: If you’re expecting fire and brimstone from the former Black Flag singer, you will not get it here (this time at least). In fact, it’s striking to me how low-key he sounds; his voice even sounds tired at times.

And why not? These are, after all, trying and even tiring times. But are these times so difficult that one should give up? Give in?

Despite the uncertain, unfortunate economy, and even outright unfair money troubles some of us face, life in the 21st century in America, vis-a-vis much of the world, and certainly when compared to the rest of human history, is pretty damn good. From the looks of many among us, though, you might not always get that feeling.

Instead, it seems that many have decided that life is impossible, that the future is bleak, dark, hopeless.

Sorry, that view is certainly not mine. It doesn’t seem to be Henry’s.

I’m looking to align with those who see light in darkness, hear music amidst clutter, envision trees where only weeds thrive in cracked, dry ground.

I know I’m not alone, but the voices of despair and anger seem so loud at times. They beat back honest discussion. They drown out those who want to have their voice heard.

They can’t be allowed to win. Will you join the fight?

It’s a big tent. Positive thinkers are who I seek. Difference makers.

For, as Henry knows and explains below…the ride we’re all on is short. Enjoy it, or disembark and let the rest of us enjoy it. Whatever choice you make, just know that it’ll be over all too soon.

What do you choose?

Thanks to Antiquiet.com for sharing this video.

Source: http://www.antiquiet.com/truth/2012/05/henry-rollins-a-message-young-people/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+antiquiet+%28Antiquiet%29

I don’t know much more beyond that. Well, I know that this family is black. Yeah, I know, I’m super observant, right? I mention this fact only because I believe that it’s got to take balls to live in a neighborhood where you’re by far the minority. Not totally alone, but far outnumbered by whites and Indians. Maybe it’s not been that big of a deal for Ken and his wife, but for Tim, it has to be tough at times. I’ve noticed him at the bus stop standing alone. Maybe that’s how he’s coped with moving a half dozen times in his short life. Maybe he stands alone because he’s of different skin tone. Maybe because he’s “new”. Maybe it was just that one day that he decided to stand alone. I have no idea. Just callin’ ‘em like I see ‘em, and wondering aloud.

So the story I was told goes like this: A month ago the mother of this family had blurry vision and went to see a doctor. It’s said that she was sure she was on the cusp of middle age and merely needed glasses.

It turned out this 39-year-old was, instead, in need of treatment for a malignant brain tumor. Unbelievably, four weeks later, her family gathered to do the unthinkable: Remove her from a ventilator.

My family did the very same thing five years ago on a day errily similar to yesterday. I remember driving to Hyde Park thinking how surreal, how cruelly ironic it was to be taking my father off of life support on such a bright, sunny, and warm spring day. As weird and rough as that day was, it’s possible it was nothing compared to what Tim and his family had to endure yesterday. My old man was sick for 8 months. He was 66. He spent virtually his whole life drinking and smoking nonstop. It was no shocker when he was felled by complications from a botched surgery to remove his cancer-ridden esophagus. Was it shocking that we experienced some of the ridiculous things we did at the supposedly world-class University of Chicago hospital? Yes. Was it shocking that I watched my dad’s supposedly world-renowned surgeon go on vacation when he surely knew that my dad was dying from an infection caused by torn sutures he himself had stitched days earlier? You bet. But what my father and family went through was not all that shocking and didn’t feel like a mugging. It felt shitty, no doubt, but somehow…fitting.

For a family to have to see their mother slip away so abruptly, and so young…I can only imagine the pain that those children are going through.

This period will determine the very course of each of their lives. The past month, and the months and years to come, will shape them for decades. I hope they use it as the spring board for success and not as some obstacle, some millstone around their necks. I hope this does not become their excuse.

I hope they see death as I now see it: Rather than dwell on the end of someone, their death helps me appreciate what came before even more. Rather than get hung up on wishing the fallen were here to “see this” or “experience that”, I am grateful that I am here to “see that” and “experience this.” I now see death as a reminder to get up and get going. My road might end when I’m 39. Maybe when I’m 66. Maybe when I’m 113. No matter what, though, I’m running down that road fast as my flabby white legs will carry me and not giving the road the chance to run out first.

I hope those kids down the street feel the same way. Time will tell. It’s clear they’re tougher than most their age and they’ve had a weird ride so far. They’ll see their mom again. I hope they have some killer stories to tell her. It’s up to them.

The TV show “The Middle”? It’s ok, I guess, but it’s a real mind-f@#! for me to see the wife from “Raymond” and the janitor from “Scrubs” raising a family. My kids get a kick out of the goofy looking kid on the show (hey, they share a common bond with him), and this show is the lead-in to the lead-in to the genius “Modern Family”, so unless there’s a game on, “The Middle” is in front of our eyeballs on Wednesdays.

The thing I hate more than anything about “The Middle” is the name. The phrase has always been a bummer. I know people who say they’re “in the middle” when they’re busy. It drives me crazy. I never could put my finger on why I hate those two words, “The” and “Middle” though until Charlie Sheen traveled from Mars to address the people of Earth.

In one of the most lucid of his historic string of moments bathed in awesomeness to America’s delight, Charlie blurted this out on camera in February, 2011:

I don’t live in the middle anymore. That’s where you get slaughtered.

See, the trolls (as Charlie so perfectly calls them) only embraced the things he muttered like a madman about “tiger blood” and “Adonis DNA” and “Winning, duh”. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I love those quotes too. But, as Charlie also quipped, “I’m battle-tested bayonets, bro.” So, when he uttered that phrase about living “in the middle”, it was like I was floating in the ether. Nothing else surrounding me could interfere as my synapses crackled with life and a rising, light drone served to beat back the world around me. Nothing else existed in that time and place. Not my wife. Not the dog. Not the kids. I saw nothing but Charlie. I truly heard nothing but Charlie. I was awash in enlightenment. I felt like my legs had left the building without me. For a moment in time, after decades of meandering search, I could see my path at last…even feel it. A bright light had been shined upon it by the most unlikely of messengers. It was as if he was speaking in code to me, only me. For that instant, Charlie Sheen was The Beatles, and I was a madman who thought the White Album was talking only to me.

I grew up wanting to be on the radio. I was fortunate enough to do that at some pretty cool joints like WLUP and WUSN in Chicago. I also helped create successful radio shows for guys like Donny Osmond (a rich black haired guy you’ve seen on TV for ages) and Kevin Trudeau (a rich black haired guy you’ve seen on TV for ages). In the process I learned something that’s proved to be pretty life-changing for me. The omnipresent “struggle” to get on the radio and get these guys on the radio (neither was a cake walk, and for totally opposite reasons ironically, let me tell you) and get all of us noticed and accepted turned me into that which I supposedly never wanted to be: A middleman.

In the radio world, DJs are the middle men between the people with the money on all sides of the equation: the consumers (aka the listeners) and the advertisers (aka, the merchants). The only ones truly making out in that transaction are the higher-up middle men, the “suits,” aka the execs and the sales people. The lower-tier middle men, the dudes like me, never or rarely do.

So I’ve decided to move from the middle. See, I now realize that if I don’t go out and take what I want in life I’m doomed to merely take what life metes out. The same dudes working with me on the radio talking up records and being “Js” were the same crowd saying “Man, I don’t want to do sales, I want to make great radio.”Everytime they opened the mic they were supposed to be performing a sales function. They didn’t see that, and for the better part of two decades, neither did I.

No matter your station in life (no radio-related pun intended), if you are unwilling to stand up and tell someone what you know and why they need it and how it can help them and at what price they can have it, you will end up in the worst place I can think of (if Dante knew about this place, there would have been an 8th Circle of his “Inferno”). My worst fear is to live my entire life in a land I call “The Middle”. Unfortunately, it’s a land many if not most call “home”.

The Middle is nowhere. No one remembers those poor s.o.b.s who fall into The Middle. You get lost in The Middle; it sucks you in like quicksand. It lies to you and masquerades itself as “success”. It’s the place we retreat to when we fear to fly high because falling “hurts”.

What is the other name for “The Middle Ages”? Oh yeah, “The Dark Ages.” Who grows up wanting to be “Middle Class?” Horsehockey.  You didn’t.  You wanted to “Rich”, not “Middle class.” And, hey, don’t even get me started about that place called The Middle East.

Need more proof the middle is nowhere, and possibly even fatal? You need look only as far as Mr. Miyagi for apropos guidance:

Mr. Miyagi to Daniel-san: Walk on road, hm? Walk left side, safe. Walk right side, safe. Walk middle, sooner or later [makes gesture with tiny fingers to indicate squish like grape]…squish, like grape.”

So, after years of being in The Middle, being what I like to call a “Middle Man”, I’ve devoted my life to getting to one side of the road or the other and ushering others there too.

I know the way out of The Middle. If you’re not there, I can help you avoid it. It’s my life’s mission to help you not end up in The Middle. If you like The Middle, that’s cool. I won’t be seeing you there.

Charlie, on the other hand: I’m coming.

Sure your detracters will have a bigger target, but, again, if you give a shit what they think, you’re sunk in the first place anyway.  Meanwhile, by NOT putting “it” out there because of insecurities, fear of reprisals, anxiety, whatever, you may miss some amazing opportunities with some amazing people.  Look, it’s a “Google” world:  Anything can and will be posted online about you, unless you’re non-descript and no one’s noticing you.  Ahem.

Once something is posted on you, good or bad, it’s in the “cloud”; it’s there to stay.  You can only control the stuff you put out there.  So shape your own reality.  Don’t let others do it for you.  There a modicum of nobility in letting others put it out there for you, but that won’t happen until you do it first.  Be the trailblazer.  Proactivity trumps reactivity.

Put the “vibe” out there already! (No one else will do it for you.)

Check out this interview of my friend Matt DuBiel by the author of $everance and The Radio Producer’s Handbook and more, Rick Kaempfer.  Matt and I have suffered some slings and arrows of late for various and sundry reasons (chief among them, for putting a few things out there.  That kind of stuff drives people crazy for some reason we’ve found).  Every single one of those arrows was totally, totally worth it.  While frustrated middle managers and undoubtedly some former employees and co-workers were taking pot shots at us on message boards, (unbelievably) in company-wide memos publicised by fallen former newspaper columnists, and in the comment sections of blogs (or so I hear…I honestly avoid that stuff…but our loiya and friend Mark Pearson was pretty pissed while discussing some of the things he’s seen, which was awesome, touching, and funny at once!), our phone has been ringing and some very interesting conversations have been taking place.  We’ve made some amazing connections throughout the process of stepping out a bit.  Great things are happening because of it all.  We’ve found some partners, some vendors, some developers, and some new friends.

Matt “gets” it.  Hell, he gets it so much he even is willing to post the most unflattering pictures I’ve ever seen (brother,

if I knew you were so fat, I would have intervened.  I am full of shame.  I failed you.).  Interesting how the more Matt has gotten derided for his views on the one hand, the more people are calling to hear his views firsthand.  The more “boos” from one side of the peanut gallery, the more people on the other side want to know what makes this dude tick.

Do you think that’s a coincidence?

Me neither.

Stand tall or get to the back of the room.  There’s no in between.

Take it from someone who’s spent years building other people up so they take the arrows, but they’ve also reaped great rewards.