My friend Steven took me to Shopsin’s many years ago when it was located down end of Houston Street.  A wonderful article about one of those NY hide-a-ways. Source:  NYT Magazine The Way We Eat – Flipping the Bird by CHRISTINE MUHLKE Larry FinkPhoto:  Kenny Shopsin and his daughter Tamara on the brunch shift. Right: Counter culture. Published: October 9, 2008 AS THE LEGENDARY bon vivant Ludwig Bemelmans once noted of restaurateurs: “The most strenuous customer-versus-proprietor battles occur in the smart restaurants of Paris and New York. This kind of restaurant, as a rule, is small. It is benefited by a certain type of guest and injured by another, and the latter must be discouraged from coming. In a man confronted daily with the task of separating the wanted from the unwanted, a degree of arrogance is indispensable.” Add photos Lars Klove for The New York Times & A Shopsin’s specialty: Mac ‘n’ cheese pancakes. Confronted daily with the task of deciding who gets to eat at Shopsin’s General Store, his 20-seat restaurant in New York’s Essex Street Market, the cook and owner Kenny Shopsin separates the wanted from the unwanted with a degree of foulmouthed eloquence that makes Lenny Bruce look like Sirio Maccioni. This is food politics in its rawest form. “We have a really wonderful relationship with our customers for the most part,” he said. “We kick [expletive] out. Regularly.” Up to three times a day. Order off the menu? Out. Cellphone call? Beat it. Sometimes people don’t even make it into a seat, as in the case of the infamous no-parties-bigger-than-four rule. Or maybe Shopsin simply doesn’t like you. (Let’s just say that years ago, when I took Alain Ducasse to dinner at Shopsin’s — I ate there weekly for eight years, until I lost it in the divorce — I knew better than to introduce him to the cook whose food he was praising. I waited weeks to tell Shopsin, who softened and got borderline misty for a second before bellowing: “I’m glad you didn’t tell me. I would’ve kicked the” you-know-what “out.”) It’s not the most Danny Meyer-like approach to cultivating clientele, but after 28 years behind the stove, Shopsin wants only to cook for people he likes. “I’m not a very mature person,” he says after a lunch shift, his white hair kept at bay by an appropriately McEnroesque headband. “Sometimes my mind works a bit too fast, and I come to the conclusion of a relationship with customers faster than they get there. The abruptness of my understanding the essence of what’s happening is really upsetting to them and makes them vindictive and angry.” (One man, refused service at the original Bedford Street grocery-turned-restaurant, ripped a toilet out of the floor.) Shopsin’s menu is another ejector seat. With more than 900 items — including 300 soups — it sends the indecisive, the health-conscious and the humorless running. It’s a window-slash-rabbit-hole into the 66-year-old’s mind: 75 riffs on pancakes, from Post Modern to Lemon Ricotta; 100 made-to-order soups, from Cream of Any Vegetable to Cheeseburger; and countless other dishes, like the Nuclear Melt Down sandwich and burgers with mac-’n’-cheese sauce. “I dedicate myself to consuming all sorts of ideas,” says Shopsin, an avid reader and Internet crawler. “Eventually something inside me, probably skewed by my erotic feelings about breasts and things like that, assembles a product and just shoots it up.” For example, a recent item on the food blog Serious Eats about foods on a stick led to the State Fair combo plate: corn-dog sausage, s’mores pancakes and chicken-fried eggs. New dishes are printed on the menu the same day: “I spent almost $3,000 on toner in the last three months,” Shopsin says. Unlike other restaurateurs, Shopsin has refused publicity. (Whenever I tried to write about him, he would tell the fact checkers that Shopsin’s was a shoe store or out of business or insist that they do something uncheckable to themselves.) But two regulars, a Knopf editor and a literary agent, persuaded him to write a cookbook. “Eat Me: The Food and Philosophy of Kenny Shopsin” blends recipes with his uncensored thoughts on cooking (“The only explanation I can give for . . . how I came to this method of cooking is that it’s a product of a lot of psychotherapy, drugs and making chicken potpies”) and running a restaurant (“My approach . . . is the exact opposite of ‘the customer is always right’ ”). Like the restaurant, where three of his four children work, the book is a family affair, designed by his daughter Tamara and photographed by his son-in-law, Jason Fulford. Shopsin is dreading the attention “Eat Me” will attract, claiming it will draw the wrong people for the wrong reasons. “The brilliance of my restaurant is that the customer base is soooo special,” he says. “They do not hesitate to engage the stranger at the next table, as opposed to just observing the dwellers of the zoo.” They know that the real reason Shopsin’s has been successful for so long — despite the fact that the owner is a self-confessed “[expletive]” who serves mind-bending food in a very funky environment — is that it has such a huge heart. “I was thinking I could learn to be insincere,” he says in book mode. “But the first day I really go off, I’ll probably just close for a month.” A version of this article appeared in print on October 12, 2008, on page MM89 of the New York edition. Related Recipes: Lemon Ricotta Pancake (October 12, 2008) Recipes: Mac ’n’ Cheese Pancakes (October 12, 2008) Recipes: Pancake Batter (October 12, 2008) Recipes: Pumpkin Pancakes (October 12, 2008)

Besides the poor customer service we all talk about – long lines at security, planes sitting on runways, and delayed flights.  Let’s talk about their CRM.  I fly business class.  I have done it for business and personal travel.  I am a member of various airline frequent flyer programs at different levels of status.  I also have opted in to receive their special offers.  Why do they send me stuff i have no interest in?  If they want to do one to one instead of mass marketing (the power of interactive marketing)  we have all talked about, why are they mailing me offers if I fly out from cities other than in the NYC area?  Why do they send me offers to fly coach at some fabulous discount?  Can’t they look at my profile and email offers that I might really be interested in?  Please share your ideas, input, or experiences.

Below is the email sent to Redgee Capili, Sr. Director of Client Services and Chief Privacy Officer and Ben Golub, President and Chief Executive Officer at PLAXO.  Let’s see what type of response we get.  I think it may be worth contacting Linkin too. Gentleman – I have decided to tackle updating my contacts for the first time in almost 7 years.  The number of contacts in outlook is over x0,000.  In addition, I would like to search inbox and sent mail for additional contacts.  This includes over xx0,000 emails. The challenges are: 1. Large volume 2. Need to de-dup 3. Need to avoid Sp-am emails 4. Would like to notify all contacts of my current contact info 5. Prefer to export clean list and email BCC or send via a mail solution so we don’t overload my mailbox with bounced email addresses 6. Security – no hack-ing into my contacts 7. Prefer not to send via Plaxo first time through 8. Need to know what draw on my email service provider servers are 9. Other issues? I originally tried to deal with your Premier Support via online CHAT.  I also tried to call your Premium Tel Support – but these are both directing me to India call centers.  I would hope that based on the unusual size of the contacts and task at hand, you have someone that can assist in this process.  Please call or email me at ….

The Theodore Roosevelt quote The Man In The Arena is one of my favorites. It is from the speech “Citizenship In A Republic” delivered at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France on April 23, 1910. Cadillac just used this quote in an Academy Awards advertisement without attribution. #daregreatly is their twitter tag.  So not cool.  Let’s not even talk about why this quote is appropriate or not for Cadillac – but to use it without attribution is just plain wrong.  Advertising Agency: Publicis why did you do this?? “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” ~ Theodore Roosevelt Source: The Man In The Arena speech “Citizenship In a Republic” delivered at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France on April 23, 1910. The full speech can be found at http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/images/research/speeches/maninthearena.pdf Cadillac Ad Dare Greatly is also video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_fm3O5h9Bg TAGS: #TheodoreRoosevelt #TeddyRoosevelt #TheodoreRooseveltquote #ManInTheArena #daregreatly #Cadillac #Advertising #caradvertising #cadillacad #cadillacroosevelt #rooseveltcadillac #Publicis #AcademyAwards #AcademyAwardsAdvertising #AcademyAwardsCadillac #Publicis #TeddyRoosevelt #TheodoreRooseveltTeddyRooseveltTheodoreRooseveltquoteManInTheArenadaregreatlyCadillacAdvertisingcaradvertisingcadillacadcadillacrooseveltrooseveltcadillacPublicisAcademyAward #ManInTheArena #TheodoreRooseveltquote #Cadillac #AcademyAwardsCadillac #TheodoreRoosevelt #cadillacad #rooseveltcadillac #AcademyAwardsAdvertising #daregreatly #caradvertising #advertising

Not sure of this guys politics, or if you think he is right.  This is the first time I have seen a good article that talks about the fact the next bad thing to happen to the ecconomy is election year 2012. Think this economy is bad? Wait for 2012. By Greg Ip, Washington Post Sunday, October 24, 2010 We’re barely two years past the banking crisis, still weathering the mortgage crisis and nervously watching Europe struggle with its sovereign debt crisis. Yet every economic seer has a favorite prediction about what part of the economy the next crisis will come from: Municipal bonds? Hedge funds? Derivatives? The federal debt? I, for one, have no idea what will cause the next economic disaster. But I do have an idea of when it will begin: 2012. Yes, an election year. Economic crises have a habit of erupting just when politicians face the voters. The reason is simple: They are born of long-festering problems such as lax lending, excessive deficits or an overvalued currency, and these are precisely the sort of problems that politicians try to ignore, hide or even double down on during campaign season, hoping to delay the reckoning until after the polls close or a new government takes office. Perversely, this only worsens the underlying imbalances, making the mess worse and the cost to the economy — in lost income and jobs — much higher. Election-year prevarication has a storied history in the United States. In the summer of 1971, President Richard Nixon imposed wage and price controls in hopes of suppressing inflation pressure until after the 1972 election. He succeeded, but the result was even worse inflation in 1973 and a deep recession starting that fall. During the 1988 presidential campaign, Vice President George H.W. Bush and Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis largely ignored the mounting losses in the nation’s insolvent thrifts for fear of admitting to taxpayers the price of cleaning them up. The delay allowed the losses and the price tag to grow, and the burden of bad loans hamstrung the economy into the early 1990s. Go back to 1932 for an even more dramatic example: After defeating Herbert Hoover that year, Franklin D. Roosevelt refused during the four-month transition to say whether he’d support the lame-duck administration’s policy for fixing the banks and keeping the dollar linked to gold. Depositors fled banks and investors dumped the dollar, resulting in another wave of bank failures that vastly worsened the Depression. But perhaps the most poignant example of election-year myopia came in 2008. After agreeing to an ad hoc bailout of Bear Stearns that March, then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson knew he needed authority and money to deal with such situations. But he didn’t ask Congress for either, reasoning that lawmakers would never approve something so contentious just months from a presidential election. (He was probably right.) So when Lehman Brothers foundered that fall, Paulson, with no orderly way to wind the company down, let it fail. He then proposed the Troubled Assets Relief Program to deal with the resulting chaos, but the House, gripped by an election-year aversion to bailouts, voted it down. The defeat sent markets into a tailspin. Lawmakers changed their minds and passed the TARP, but the intervening panic worsened the economic pain. Elections are even more of a trigger for crises in other countries. When Greece’s national election campaign began in September 2009, the government claimed that the budget deficit was more than 6 percent of gross domestic product, high but manageable. Yet shortly after the socialist government took power, it revealed that the deficit was in fact closer to 12.5 percent. The previous government, it turned out, had been issuing optimistic forecasts and hiding some of its spending. As foreign investors’ confidence in Greece evaporated, interest rates on its debt soared. To avoid default, it was forced to seek a bailout from the International Monetary Fund and the European Union. The Greek economy will probably shrink at least 3 percent both this year and next. Mexico’s financial crises regularly coincide with presidential elections. In early 1982, the government knew that its deficit was too large and that its currency was overvalued. Investors were pulling their money out, draining the nation’s foreign currency reserves. Government officials hoped to postpone action until after the July election, and the Federal Reserve helped by making short-term dollar loans to Mexico designed solely to make its reserves appear larger. “We were trying to buy time until the election and new government. We failed,” recalls Ted Truman, a Fed official at the time. Money continued to flee, and a month after the election, Mexico announced it couldn’t repay its bank loans, triggering the Latin American debt crisis, a severe recession and what many called the region’s “lost decade.” A similar dynamic brought on Mexico’s election-year “tequila crisis” of 1994, which forced a massive and sudden devaluation of the peso and required tens of billions of dollars in international assistance. Even when a government tries to do the right thing, electoral politics make it difficult. During the 1997 Asian financial crisis, South Korea negotiated a $55 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and others to avoid defaulting on its private bank loans; in return, it promised reforms such as closing weak banks. But confidence evaporated and the currency plunged when the leading opposition candidate in that year’s presidential election attacked the agreement. A similar situation occurred in the election to succeed Brazil’s President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who had brought stability to his country during the 1990s after decades of inflation and default. When it became apparent that his handpicked successor would lose in 2002 to leftist challenger Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s stock markets and currency plunged, and the government lost the ability to issue long-term bonds. Inflation and interest rates shot up, hammering the economy. These countries actually offer an uplifting lesson: The damage wrought by the crises helped build support for solutions. In Korea in 1997 and Brazil in 2002, populist challengers ultimately embraced their predecessors’ reform plans. Greece’s socialists campaigned last year promising to raise public salaries, invest in infrastructure and help small businesses. But they are now undertaking painful reforms, such as raising retirement ages and injecting more competition into protected industries such as trucking. Of course, these countries are relatively young democracies with legacies of economic mismanagement. It couldn’t happen here anymore, right? Think again. Yes, this year the United States passed the sweeping Dodd-Frank Act, seeking to make financial crises a thing of the past. But there are countless problems that can develop into disasters (think Foreclosure-Gate). And Dodd-Frank is useless if the next crisis involves our tattered government finances. Which brings us to 2012. Let me take a stab at what the next crisis will be. Our deficit, as a share of GDP, is at a peacetime record, and the debt is climbing toward a post-World War II record. Thoughtful economists agree on the response: Combine stimulus for our fragile economy now with a plan to slash the deficit and stabilize the debt when the recovery is more entrenched. Yet the approaching November midterms have made it impossible to advance a serious proposal for doing that. Congress has been unable to pass a budget, and the government is operating on a short-term “continuing resolution.” President Obama’s plan for reining in the national debt consists of appointing a bipartisan commission that won’t report until after the midterms. Even if the commission can agree on a realistic plan to chop the deficit, the polarized state of Congress suggests slim odds of adoption. With neither party able to muster the support to get serious about reducing the deficit, both may prefer to kick the problem down the road to after 2012, in hopes that the election hands one of them a clear mandate. For now, there’s enough risk of Japanese-style stagnation and deflation that U.S. interest rates could remain very low for a while yet. But if that risk fades, investors in U.S. Treasury bonds will want to know how we’ll get our deficits and debt under control — and could demand higher interest rates to compensate for the uncertainty. By then, though, the 2012 campaign may be upon us. The Republican nominee will assail Obama’s fiscal record and promise a determined assault on the debt. Obama will respond by blaming George W. Bush and promising to unveil his own plan once he’s reelected. Neither will commit political suicide by specifying which taxes they’ll raise or which entitlements they’ll cut. Will investors trust them, or will they start to worry that the endgame is either inflation or default, two tried-and-true ways other countries have escaped their debts? If it’s the latter, we’ll face a vicious circle of rising interest rates and budget deficits, squeezing the economy and potentially forcing abrupt and painful austerity measures. And if, instead, the markets continue to give us the benefit of the doubt, relieving our politicians of the need to act: Circle 2016 on your calendar. Greg Ip is U.S. economics editor of the Economist and the author of “The Little Book of Economics: How the Economy Works in the Real World.” Greg Ip #ThinkthiseconomyisbadWaitfor2012GregIp

Jeff Zucker amended his famous quote "analog dollars to digital pennies" to "analog dollars to digital dimes"- Good we have a dimestore!  Heard at Media Summit NY Mar 18, 2009. News: Apart from taking on Jon Stewart, Zucker also touched on why Hulu pulled its content from CBS’ TV.com video site, the changing model of TV in general and progress the company has made on the digital front. How much progress? Well, Zucker updated his conference line about analog dollars being turned into digital pennies as TV programming migrates online, saying that now, the network is able to wring "digital dimes" out of its web video. Still, he was naturally short on specifics in terms of how many digital dimes NBCU has been counting. – Source:   David Kaplan at PaidContent.org

Piece of Life Cube Project on display at Las Vegas City Hall By Krista Hostetler CREATED Feb. 19, 2014 Las Vegas, NV (KTNV) — A piece of the Life Cube Project now has a temporary home at Las Vegas City Hall. The public is invited to write their wishes and put them in the cube that will eventually be burned during a downtown festival on March 21. The idea is to build a bond between art and the community. The walk-thru interactive experience features murals by local artists, musical performances and a light show. #art #community #downtownlasvegas #LasVegas #lifecubeproject #artists #lifecube #wishes #scottcohen #BurningMan #murals

The Life Cube Project was recently featured in an article on VentureBeat.com, which discussed Burning Man and its allure to the tech elite who attend. Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh has brought Burning Man art and events to his $300 million makeover of downtown Las Vegas. His organization, which aims to make the rundown downtown into a tech hub, supported a giant art sculpture, the Life Cube (pictured above), which was covered in art from the local community — then burned in a giant rave celebration. “The hive switch got turned on by raves. It was a feeling of unity with the other people in the space, unity with the music and with one another,” Hsieh recently told Playboy Magazine. “That’s why I go to Burning Man. The art, especially at night, just puts you in a state of awe.” To read the full article, click here! #art #thelifecubeproject #lasvegas #TheLifeCube #burningman2014 #zappos #Burningman #venturebeat #LasVegas #technology #tonyhsieh #LV #thelifecubeproject #burningman2014 #tech #lifecube #vegas #lifecube #venturebeat #TheLifeCube #BurningMan

looking at all the notes & posts from friends at CES. Missing the buzz, the networking, the great speakers. Not getting a chance to see the gadgets & gizmos, the latest & greatest, the biggest & smallest, the coolest stuff in the electronic world, and all the things we thought were generations away. #CES http://www.cesweb.org/ #IntelCorporation #ConsumerElectronicsShow #Lenovo #Twitter #electronics #Android #Gadget #LasVegasNevada #gizmos #CES

Over the years I’ve had more bosses than I can count on one hand-maybe even 2 hands. I was Dave’s number guy at Petry that became 24/7 Media. Looking back, I can honestly say Dave was the nicest and best boss I had. He is smart, has little ego, and a way of finding common ground. In merging and buying a lot of companies, Dave was able to get everyone on the same page, balance everyone’s concerns, create opportunities, and once you proved you could deliver – Dave supported you and watched your back. I learned a ton from Dave on how to be a good boss, a good manager, and how to take a long term view of the landscape. One of the most important qualities in dave’s style is his making sure to remove obstacles (internal and external) and give you the resources to get the job done. There is nothing more satisfying than delivering the goods for Dave. Several of the people who run companies in Internet marketing have tried to raid the 24/7 exec team – only to find fierce loyalty. Basically, Dave gets it because he deserves it. David J. Moore Steps into Enhanced Chairman Role and Appoints Jonathan K. Hsu Chief Executive Officer of 24/7 Real Media NEW YORK, Jul 28, 2008 24/7 Real Media Inc., the leading global digital marketing company, today announced that Jonathan K. Hsu has been appointed CEO, effective immediately. After serving for nearly 12 years as Founder, Chairman, and CEO of 24/7 Real Media, David J. Moore will continue serving as Chairman while playing a larger role in strategy and business development. Mr. Hsu, 36, previously served as 24/7 Real Media’s Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, where he was responsible for its global operations, including Technology Development, Technology Operations, Corporate Development, Finance, Marketing, Product Management, Human Resources and various administrative functions. As CEO, he will focus on day-to-day operational responsibilities, enhancing 24/7’s award-winning services for advertisers and publishers, and overseeing the company’s international expansion. As Chairman of 24/7 Real Media, Mr. Moore will focus on strengthening the company’s industry position, strategic relationships, recruitment and business development. Mr. Moore will also continue to work closely with WPP Digital to support the development and implementation of WPP’s digital initiatives. "Dave and Jon have exemplified a formidable leadership team since late 2001," said Mark Read, CEO, WPP Digital. "These changes give both executives new responsibilities that will be both challenging and rewarding, and further enhance the future of the company and WPP Digital." "I have spent more than a decade at the helm of 24/7 Real Media and have experienced the best and worst of the responsibility that comes with the CEO position. It is not an easy job, however," said Mr. Moore. "Jonathan Hsu is an exceptional leader and brilliant strategist. He has consistently demonstrated an ability to identify new opportunities to grow the business. He will make an outstanding chief executive and I look forward to continuing our work together in these new roles. I love this business and look forward to continuing to build 24/7, WPP and our exciting industry." Mr. Hsu joined the company in March 2000, and as COO was instrumental in the company’s acquisition by WPP and numerous strategic partnerships with industry leaders such as Yahoo! and Dentsu. Previously, Mr. Hsu served as CFO, where he oversaw a 500 percent jump in revenue growth over four years. As Senior Vice President – Corporate Development and Strategic Planning, he was responsible for driving the company’s geographic and product line expansion, overseeing the acquisitions of Insight First in January 2002, Real Media Korea in December 2003, and Decide Interactive in August 2004. "It has been an incredible experience working with a true visionary and leader like David, and I am honored to succeed him as CEO of 24/7 Real Media," said Mr. Hsu. "With online ad spending set to grow double digits for years to come, there are outstanding opportunities for 24/7 to expand our relationships with advertisers and publishers, while maintaining the innovative technology development and exceptional customer service that set us apart." Prior to joining 24/7 Real Media, Mr. Hsu worked for JP Morgan Chase Securities, where he specialized in M&A activities for new economy companies, telecommunication firms, and financial sponsors. He also served as a venture capitalist at American Lead Ventures and founded a magazine distributed internationally by Time Warner. Mr. Hsu holds an M.B.A. in Finance and Strategic Management from the Wharton School of Business and a B.A. in Economics from Harvard University.

The Great Escape, The Godfather, Leap of Faith, Big Night and Braveheart – missing One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Pieces of April