Almost every week I get asked one of those existential questions sometimes people ponder about. One of such questions is: “Are geniuses born or made?“, or a variation of it like: “Is intelligence and talent an inborn skill or can it be taught?” I was having dinner with a client a couple of nights ago, and as we discussing the natural ability some people have to comprehend and efficiently solve work problems, my client inquired my opinion about this matter.
Update September 15, 2021: The rest of this story has been removed, as it is now part of Chapter #2 of my book.
HBO’s WWII miniseries “Band of Brothers” is one of the best miniseries of all time. It’s the story of one of the paratrooper companies of the 506th Infantry Regiment that made the invasion of Normandy (D-Day), told in the perspective of several of its members and leaders, one of them being Richard “Dick” Winters.
Winters is first seen as 2nd Lt in the miniseries, under the orders of 1st Lt Herbert Sobel (who makes Captain in the very first episide, before D-Day). Winters is respected by the entire company (and even the other companies of the batallion), whereas Sobel authority is largely questioned. Due to reasons not relevant to this entry (and avoiding spoilers as well), Captain Sobel is transferred from the company and with a few exceptions, is not seen again until the end of the series. At that point, he is still a Captain, however Winters is now a Major and outranks him, which is quite amazing considering he was below Sobel at the beginning of the series. In one of the final and most memorable scenes of Band of Brothers, Sobel and Winters coincidentally meet at a German field. By this time, Sobel is clearly resentful of Winters, and his resent is even bigger when he sees Winters’ golden oak leaves. Sobel walks by Winters and instead of saluting him, he simply says “Major Winters”, which is known as an offense to a superior officer. Winters knows Sobel is resentful of him, but he also knows respect of authority goes beyond feelings towards the person, and what he does next is nothing short of amazing:
Winters couldn’t be more right: you salute (hence respect) the rank, not the man. This rules applies in several situations and contexts, including the Chain of Command of the United States Executive Government.
The reason why I bring this up is because it was brought to my attention today, an incident that occurred in the Press room of the White House, where a reporter stood up and asked President Trump to give him the right to ask a question. Trump quickly dismissed him and gave the right to speak to another reporter. The reporter -still standing and with no right to speak- insisted having the right to a question and proceeded to make several statements I am assuming he wanted to inquire about. Trump then ordered the security personal to remove the reporter from the room.
No matter how much against people can be about Trump being our President, I can’t condone the behavior of the reporter who wants and demands to ask a question. Like it or not, Trump is the President of the United States, and like it or not, people have to respect the rank (even if they do not respect the man). If the President doesn’t give you permission to speak, you cannot keep talking at him, because that is more disrespecful and doesn’t improve the situation.
We can make fun of President Trump, disagree on his views and actions, and even go as far as not respect him as a person. What we definitely cannot do, is not show respect for the figure of the President of the United States of America.
This country has a lot of freedom and a lot of liberties, but one thing that we really have to keep in place at all times, is respect.
As we are just hours away from what may be the last encounter of the greatest rivalry in tennis, that is Nadal vs Federer at the Australian Open final, I’m still marvelled at Rafa’s friday’s semifinal performance, where once again he wrote another page in the book of tennis history. I’ll probably won’t write a follow up entry after the result of the finals, because at this point, it simply doesn’t matter.
Nadal celebrating his semifinal victory
Rafa had already made a statement on his third round match when he faced up and coming, rising star 19-year old Alexander Zverev, beating him in five close sets 4-6/6-3/6-7/6-3/6-2. Zverev played as great as anyone could, and there is no doubt in my mind that had he won that match, it would have been him playing Dimitrov in the semifinals.
Nadal shakes hand with rising star Zverev.
But Nadal simply refused to pass the torch to the new guard, instead out-playing and out-lasting Zverev with a combination of shots, strategy, fitness and experience, and in the end he sent a clear message to everyone on the tour: He’s still around and he’s still hungry.
Against Dimitrov -known as Baby Federer for his similar game to Roger’s-, the story was a bit different. Dimitrov had a remarkable second half of 2016 after hiring a new coach, who worked on the mental aspect of the game, which is known to be Grigor’s weakness. Success included his first victory against Nadal, after seven losses. So when both men met at Rod Laver’s arena on Friday, there was a considerable amount of fans who thought that this time Dimitrov would beat Nadal, especially when you come to think that Nadal’s recovery may have impacted his endurance and stamina, probably folding against Grigor’s overwhelming forehand and dazzling backhand. While Nadal is known to exploit one-handed backhand with his heavy top spin, tennis experts agreed that Dimitrov’s backhand would not be threatned by this, due to Grigor being taller and more athletic than other players, hence more able to handle Nadal’s top spin. Zverev was a good test, but Dimitrov was going to be the real deal.
Dimitrov’s new coach Daniel Vallverdu has become a significant positive addition
This proved true as the match progressed, and as the scoreboard read 6-3/5-7/7-6/6-7/3-4, things were starting to look gray for Nadal’s future. Then, they turned dark, when at the eigth game, Nadal was serving 15-40, which meant that if Dimitrov broke, he would be serving for the match.
Then, all of a sudden, something happened: something inside Nadal, “clicked”.
Playing the best tennis of the match, Rafa saved both breakpoints, sent the game in advantage to his favor, and won the game to tie the score at 4-4. Dimitrov’s skin went pale, his eyes looked lost and his body language began to tell the story of a man that would soon lose the match. Nadal on the other hand, looked as if he was ready to lift the trophy. So what exactly happened in that 15-40, the point where the sealing of Nadal’s victory started?
Nadal celebrating after saving two break points
There are moments in life when suddenly everything you have heard, learned, known, dreamed, believed, and you have the ability to do, just happens. To one degree or another, and to a certain extent, there is a special moment when you realize that you are able to achieve great things in life. Those moments are huge, monumental confidence boosters, because they are the ones that take you from being good at something and turn you into being great at something. Some of them come in the form of an awakening call at a very low point in the career of the involved person.
Most people around the world probably don’t even know who Steve Kerr is, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of, because he’s not exactly a great NBA player with a legendary status such as Jordan, Magic, Bird, Thomas, and so on.
However in 1997, Steve went from being a good player, to a great player. Earlier in the season, he had been punched on the face by Michael Jordan during a heated practice session for missing a few shots. Kerr was new in Chicago and he was brought as an alternative great shooter, to support Jordan, Pippen and Kukoc. However during the first games, Kerr’s supposed great skills at shooting didn’t show up. He lacked concentration, passion and that special edge that was needed in such a competitive team as Chicago. Jordan probably got fed up with it, and it all blew during a practice game.
The incident went unnoticed back then and only today it has gained popularity thanks to both Jordan and Kerr openly talking about it. Kerr states that being punched by Jordan was an awakening moment. He realized that Jordan didn’t punch him because he was bad at shooting or because he had missed shots in practice. He punched him because he wanted Steve to raise his competitiveness, to raise his skills, and to raise his game so that while he definitely would never be legendary material, at least he would be teammate enough to work next to Michael Jordan, so that in a moment of crucial need, Michael -as the leader of the team- could count on him. That moment came in game six of the 1997 finals.
With 28 seconds left in the game, the score was tied at 86 between Chicago Bulls and the Utah Jazz. A timeout had been called by the Bulls, and most of the world watching the game believed and expected that Jordan would be the one taking what would probably be the final shot to win it for Chicago. The Jazz probably expected that too. Jordan -being the wise and intelligent player he was- also expected it, so he came up with a solution: since the Jazz would likely double-team him, he would need someone to pass the ball to, so that that person could take the shot. That person had to be a great shooter, and that person was Steve Kerr. Jordan told Kerr what would happen (the Jazz double-teaming on him) and he told Kerr to “be ready”. Kerr’s reply -now immortalized on youtube- was: “I’ll be ready”.
From that day and on, Kerr became known as a great shooter and master of the 3-point shot. Eventually, the moment would bring a larger and broader impact on Steve’s career as a player and as a coach.
It would be pointless to say that Nadal’s achievements depended on that 15-40 3-4 game against Dimitrov. However I will go as far as saying that the remaining of Nadal’s career from that night and on, depended on that whether he won point or got his serve broken and faced Dimitrov serving for the match.
In a few hours, Nadal will face Federer for the 35th time in their careers, for the 2017 Australian Open Grand Slam title. I believe Nadal will beat Federer and claim his 15th Grand Slam, all because of him winning that 15-40 3-4 on Friday night.
EDIT: In an amazing breathtaking performance, Roger won. I really thought Rafa would win; then again, on Dec 30th Roger tweeted this:
Talk about the moment when it all clicks.
Thanks Roger and Rafa, for teaching us what true motivation is.
In this new era of social media, tweeting and deleting tweets, one can be grateful for these huge tools that keep your word recorded on stone, like the ten commandments that were handed to Moses, or like Hamurabi’s code written in 1750 BC. You’ll probably be wondering, what does my linking of social media with the ten commandments have to do with anything, and especially with Theranos.
Over one year and two months ago, I shared this thought with some of my friends:
Today, Elizabeth Holmes -Theranos’ CEO-, faces a fate that so far looks quite similar to the road Jeff Skilling went back in 2001-2002.
Elizabeth Holmes dropped Stanford in 2003 to start up Theranos, a company that was supposedly able to to hundreds of blood tests using just a sample taken from the tip of your finger. 13 years later, it looks like that sentence I just wrote should have the word “supposedly” replaced by “not”.
My issue in all of this, is how come investors and stakeholders put up with this for so long? It has been discovered that Holmes lured investors with preferred stock, in exchange of keeping privacy and confidenciality with the internal procedures of Theranos, that is, confidentiality of how did the testing worked… or, whether if the testing actually worked.
If you watch this video, you’ll probably have similar conclussions than mine:
The most important one is that Holmes is a psycopath. This woman has lost complete sense of reality and is in total denial of her situation, her company’s situation and the huge problems she’s creating to her employees and her clients. It’s the exact same behavior that another psycopath had: Jeff Skilling.
The irony is that she idolized Steve Jobs. The thing is, that Steve Jobs didn’t go around telling people he had this little gadget thing that fit in your pants that was able to carry 1,000 songs, but kept it hidden from the public for 13 years, kept promising to show it but never showed it. Steve didn’t even mention that he was working on his products when they were on development stage. He just launched the product once it was ready for public release. That’s why Apple is one of the most valued companies in the world. Theranos on the other hand, was valued at Nine Billion Dollars last year by Forbes. Now it’s valued at $0, also by Forbes.
You know, just because someone’s blonde, gorgeously beautiful, has a baritone deep intimidating voice and is really smart, doesn’t mean that person is able to do what he/she claims he/she can do.
Around this time last year, I remember laughing out loud at this image:
Last night there wasn’t any laughing at all.
This morning as I drove to work I kept asking myself the same question over and over: how exactly did Donald Trump win this election? I recalled the image and remembered that a year ago, while funny and original, I believed the image had some truth in it: there was indeed a real chance that Trump would win the election, despite a large amount of people being sure he wouldn’t and who now may feel despondent at the outcome of the elections.
Last night as I felt the enlightenment, I realized Trump won not because he is a good politician, but because he is an excellent marketer and an excellent salesman. Trump not only gave a political lesson, he taught a few important Sales and Marketing mastery life-lessons:
1. Have a brand and a slogan
I never really understood why Hillary didn’t have a strong catchy slogan. Her taciturn nature needed something to boost her through the crowds. Trump on the other hand from day one, engraved four words in the American minds that became synonymous of what he believed in. “Make America Great Again.”
Whatever Trump could say or do, it didn’t really matter, because all anyone could think of whenever his name was brought up were the words “Make America Great Again.” You could read them on his Twitter, his Facebook, his caps, hats, posters, podiums, over and over non-stop. Trump also backed up his slogan with his brand name: TRUMP, which you see in all his real estate developments. So how could one not associate TRUMP with Make America Great Again?
Trump’s slogan ameliorated his campaign. In contrast, Hillary had nothing. The lesson to be learned here is that one must have a slogan. What derives come it is my next point…
2. Have a slogan with a meaning… even if it isn’t true!
The first time read the words “Make America Great Again”, I thought to myself: “America already is the greatest country on the planet. Why is Trump talking about making it Great Again? It’s already great.” But to some people’s reality, it wasn’t -even if it was a reality invented by a mendacious politician.
Today November 9th, there is no doubt in my mind that America is the greatest country on the planet. However, Trump’s slogan achieved what seemed impossible: it made 59 million people believe that America is not the greatest country on the planet, and more importantly, it made them believe that Trump is the one person that is able to change that reality and make America the greatest nation on Earth.
The is no nation on the planet that is greater than the United States of America. Yet somehow Trump deceived almost 60 million people, that some other nation in the world IS the greatest nation on Earth (or at least, greater than the US). Which nation is it? Well, Trump never actually mentioned it. And that’s the beauty of his slogan. He said his slogan, he repeated his slogan, he wore his slogan, he breathed his slogan.
He made a masteful use of a red herring, by giving a logical fallacy that led people toward a non-existent fact.
3. Promise, with no actual plan.
If you’ve seen that masterpiece of Frank Capra and Jimmy Stewart, “It’s a wonderful life” you’ll probably remember one of George Bailey’s most iconic quotes:
“What is it you want, Mary? What do you want? You want the moon? Just say the word and I’ll throw a lasso around it and pull it down. Hey. That’s a pretty good idea. I’ll give you the moon, Mary. ”
The scene is memorable because surely there is absolutely no way someone can throw a lasso around the moon and pull it down. George Bailey is being romantic. All that he wants is Mary’s love. In order to conquer her, he devises several ideas, including dancing with her, visiting her, being nice to her, and offering her to pull down the moon with a lasso. Of course, there is absolutely no way Mary will want the Moon to be pulled down to her. She just wants to hear those pretty words, and imagine -even if it is for one minute- how beautiful would the Moon look in front of her as George had pulled it down for her.
One of Trump first promises was as astounding as George’s Moon pull-down: “If I get elected, I’m going to build a wall on the US-Mexican border, and I’ll make Mexico pay for it,” During the entirety of the presidential campaign, not one person confronted, questioned or directly asked Trump, how is he planning to build the wall, and more importantly, how is he planning on making Mexico pay for it. There were some vague questions here and there, but never a direct confrontation seeking a direct answer from him. He just kept repeating the same thing over and over: “We’ll build the wall, and Mexico will pay for it.”
59 million Americans, heard Trump’s words and imagined how beautiful the wall would look on the US-Mexico border.
4. Sometimes taking the high road doesn’t work.
In the early 90s, there was a point where the console wars between Nintendo and Sega got really nasty. During the peak of the NES’ popularity, and the birth of the Genesis -Sega’s new console- Sega launched a very aggressive marketing campaign that featured a really great slogan: “Genesis does what Nintendon’t.” It was quite effective because in four words, it praised the capabilities of the new 16-bit Genesis, while degrading the capabilities of the 8-bit Nintendo”
During one of the debates between Hillary and Trump, when referring to the disrespectul tone Trump used on her, Hillary responded by saying “when they go low, we go high”, alluring to Trump’s insults and degrading comments. Apparently, Hillary doesn’t know that in politics, sometimes taking the high road doesn’t work. Her classy act got old really fast and Trump sticked to going low all through the campaign. He was relentless and never paused for breathing. Hillary on the other hand, had her chances to go low and attack Trump, but she missed them or chose not to capitalize on them.
5. There is no such thing as bad publicity.
This one is quite simple. Trump:
Insulted Vietnam veterans
Insulted Iraq veterans
Insulted LGBT
Insulted muslims
Insulted latins
Insulted women
Insulted, insulted, insulted and kept insulting.
Then, he…
Was discovered saying he “grabbed women by the pussy”
Lied about paying taxes
Bragged about not paying taxes
Bragged about lying about not paying taxes
Bragged about buying Chinese workforce and manufacturing.
and still, with all this said and done, 59 million Americans, voted for him.
————————————————
These are the five of the main reasons why Trump won this election. Overall, he did exactly what he promised to: he never became a politician. All he did was run a one-year Master’s in Sales and Marketing. And he graduated with honors.
Over the past weeks, a select group of friends have been complaining about my lateness in answering their calls, texts, WhatsApp messages, IMs, Twitter/Instagram/Facebook updates, and pretty much any online call to action that requires my attention in social media that is controlled by perhaps the most important device in our lives in current times: the cell phone.
This led me to ask an inevitable question: Am I really not answering and responding to my personal messages/calls as fast as I should, or are my friends falling for the ‘Cell Phone Addiction’?
Let’s begin by defining this concept.
The ‘Cell Phone Addiction’ is a phrase I came up with after watching two of my friends conducting several activities over the course of five days, such as: watching movies, playing cards, cooking, taking care of their garden, driving, grocery shopping. During the exercise, at all times my friends would immediately respond to any notification received on their cell phones. Give or take, they would respond in less than ten seconds. When I was at work -meaning, not watching them-, my friends would call me and at times I was not able to take their calls (meetings, driving, jobsite). When I was able to get a hold of my phone, I would notice that I would have five or six missed calls from the same contact. Needless to say, after I called back, the matter needed to be discussed over the call was far from being an emergency, and more like a “What are we doing for dinner tonight?”
When engaged in a chat with someone, (IE: WhatsApp), they would complain about how that person would take several minutes to respond to a chat, having seen the double blue checkmark: “He left me double-blue checked! How dare he?” Other times they would see a notification pop-up on their locked phones, but then they would not unlock it or login to WhatsApp, arguing that: “I can’t login, because if I do, people will see I’m online and I haven’t answered their messages.”
So now that I have given an insight of my friend’s relationship with their phones, I will share mine.
When I open my house’s door, the first thing that I look at is my large beautiful and comfortable couch to my left. When I enter, I normally drop my keys and my cell phone on the table next to my door, then I proceed to wash my hands and my face, take off my shoes, get myself into comfortable clothes, and land on my beautiful and comfortable couch. I do this because I place more importance in taking care of myself, than taking care of my phone’s contact list, which I can do at a later time, preferably, after I have settled myself in my home.
When I’m at work I focus on my work responsibilities, and I rarely check my personal phone. I do this because my job pays my bills; answering personal calls/IMs does not. If I have nothing to do at work, work is slow, or I am on a break, I can borrow a few minutes to check my personal phone, otherwise, I don’t touch it until after work hours. Did you know that 58% of cell phone users cannot go more than an hour without checking their phones? One can only wonder how much work can they get done?
When I’m driving, well… I’d rather pay attention to the road than to my phone. When I play cards with my friends, I pay attention to the game, even when it’s not my turn. I like to win, therefore my phone is a distraction.
I have no blocks or filters on my WhatsApp: anyone can see my last online time, my double blue checks, my icon, and so on. I understand the fact that there are people who deserve or expect an immediate response, but is that percentage really that high?
Finally, when I go out with someone I like to focus on the person I’m with and enjoy spending time with them.
This is why I believe that there is no excuse that can withhold to anyone going five minutes without checking their phones, especially if it is in an environment like the ones I exposed earlier. If you feel you have a few things in common with the friends I just described, perhaps you already share the symptoms of a cell phone addict. If that is the case, then the best thing you can do is admit you have a problem of dependency. You should start working on a solution to get rid of you addiction and enjoy the pleasures of life that do not need you to be hanging on to your phone.
Some tips to start working on losing the dependency to your phone include:
1. Monitor your cell phone usage: it may be shocking at first, but once you find out you have been using your phone for more than five hours a day, reality will hit you hard. Five hours is a lot of time. Also, do a detail search on the usage per app.
2. Create no-phone time zones: give yourself a period of time when you simply do not check your phone. Cook, eat your meal, whatever you do, just put it away and let it ring.
3. Turn off your phone when driving: safety comes first. Whatever is happening to your friends when you are behind the wheel, there is little you can do to change it while you are driving. If you really need to check it because of an urgent matter, then make a stop at a gas station.
4. Find a friend you can talk to who is not a cell phone addict: perhaps that person will have a thing or two to teach you about enjoying things in life that are not cell phone related.
5. Turn off your cell when going to bed: pretty much similar to #3. Of course, some conditions and exceptions apply. Like for instance if you are a parent waiting for your daughter to inform she arrived safely at her date destination, or if you are waiting for them to get home. But if your daughter is in another country, there is not much you can do about her, so let her live. The rest of the world can wait until tomorrow.
6. Think and measure the need to answer: ask yourself questions such as “Do I really need to call/text this person right now?” and “Is this a life-threatening situation or is this a mundane event that can be taken care of later?”
7. Find a hobby: perhaps you are using your phone as a mood thermometer, which means you feel better when you use it and when people respond quickly to your texts, and you get upset when you don’t use it and people do not respond to your online activities.
8. No devices at meals: if you are by yourself, just eat. If you have company, enjoy your company. If you don’t enjoy your company, be polite.
9. Don’t use your phone as an alarm clock: get an actual alarm clock and leave your phone downstairs / outside your room.
I do not have all answers, and as I stated at the beginning, I admit that I may respond to personal messages / calls a bit slower than other people do. However I will say that answering to every single notification in less than ten seconds is not good either. I feel that one must learn how to balance the two extremes, and manage their relationship with their phone. Unless you are an influencer who requires absolute control of their cell phone, ask yourself the question if handling your cell phone is managing your social life.
It has been said many times that all you need to die is to be alive, and that only when you die, is your legend born. That is not the case with Muhammad Ali.
In our current era of social media technology, with millions of views on random YouTube videos, likes, dislikes, pokes, Facebook and Instagram sharing and other media frenzy, some of the glorified words reserved for certain situations and people have become misused on a regular basis. Even the phrase “Living Legend” has fallen into dispair being constantly misused at times with people who are great but not worthy of that qualification. However up until yesterday there was one person who was absolutely worthy of being referred that way in our planet, a person who maybe would have been humble enough to dismiss being called that. Yet to me, that was the only way to describe Muhammad Ali: A Living Legend. Well… that, along with his self-proclaimed way to describe himself: The Greatest.
I was named after Muhammad Ali and as a kid my parents always told me that they chose Ali because he is “a great man.” My parents rarely agreed on anything, however on this particular subject I will never forget that particular choice of words coming from both of them: “a great man. As a curious four-year-old kid, I wondered to myself: what exactly is “a great man“? How does a man become “great“? What did Ali do to become “great“? What was so special about him that both my parents agreed to name me after him? Days later, I asked both my parents the same question again, this time separately. One day to my mom, another day to my dad.
My mom replied that first of all, Ali was an incredibly handsome man. A man with presence. A towering man, with a huge back, great legs and huge chest. A gifted man with a gorgeous body and a unique face. But not only was Ali physically handsome; he was a man with a beautiful soul and a wonderful heart. He spoke from his heart and he was sincere, and he had the best intentions for his people. He had strong principles and beliefs, and he fought for them. He took a stance against the Vietnam War, and war in general. He refused to serve for his country on the premise that he wouldn’t kill people he had no quarrel against. He was a peaceful man who wanted peace for all mankind. For those of you wondering, my mom is a blonde, caucasian.
When I asked my dad -a hispanic mixed african american-, he said: “I told you. We named you after Ali, because Ali is The Greatest.” It impressed me and I was kind of left puzzled that my dad simply reiterated what he had already said me before. Plain and simple, that was his answer. I responded to my dad: “Dad, that is not an answer. I need a logical answer.” So he handed me two Betamax video tapes: “Watch them“, he said.
The video-tapes were a two-part documentary about Ali’s life. The first video covered Ali’s beginnings, his victory in the Olympics and his surprise victory against Sonny Liston. I particularly remember that when the documentary reached the beginning of the Ali vs. Liston fight, I thought Ali was going to lose. Then it moved on to their subsequent rematch, and then through his complete dominance of every single opponent he faced, including the dismantling of Floyd Patterson, Ernie Terrel, Zora Folley, and what arguably is the greatest display of utter heavyweight power brilliance on a ring, his fight versus Cleveland Williams. I was completely shocked after seeing the way Ali moved, hit, and overall put on a display of a perfect performance in those three rounds.
Then, the documentary got interesting. It was no longer about fights anymore and about a great fighter. This guy was now refusing to serve in the US Army, in a stance that was completely unheard of coming from a celebrity. I thought to myself:
“Why is this idiot refusing to serve for our country? Who does he think he is? If the US Army tells you, you have to serve for America, then you must serve for America. Ted Williams did it on WW2 and Korea, and so did James Stewart, Joe Di Maggio, Elvis Presley, and many others. What’s the big deal? Why is he refusing? He must be scared of going to war, and that’s it.“
I also thought to myself: “This guy is an idiot. I am ashamed I was named after him. I have to get my name changed as soon as I can. It’s embarrasing that my parents named me after him. I will not carry with this through my life.“
Despite being very young, I was a precocious kid. I learned how to read at a very early age. You could say that I was somewhat of a prodigy. By the time I was five years old, I had read about American history, famous American personalities, and I remember I had glanced the name Muhammad Ali here and there, but for some reason I was not too interested in him, perhaps because to me at that point he was only a boxer. On the other hand, guys like Ted Williams “The Greatest Batter who ever lived”, Jimmy Stewart “the best classic actor of Hollywood”, and Elvis “The King”, were my role models and examples of what I should become as a grown man. Ted Williams gave up five years in baseball to serve in WW2 and in Korea. Had he played those five years, his numbers and his records would have been even more impressive than what they are. The same reasoning applies to Di Maggio. So to me, I saw serving for your country as a sacrifice. People like them deserved respect and praise. Therefore, to learn that Muhammad Ali had refused to serve for his country, when several other personalities enlisted and fought to defend America before him, felt to me like a complete degradation of his name, his career and everything he stood for.
It was at that point when the first part of the documentary suddenly got cut off, and I realized I had to switch to part 2 on the other tape, which I did. The last lines of the first tape were something around the lines of “Ali was facing jail and about to be sentenced to prison.” While switching the tapes, internally I wished that he had been sent to prison.
The second part resumed where the first one had ended. Now we were getting on the task of explaining and answering all my questions. “Why did Ali refuse to serve? Who does he think he is?”… as well as to answer other questions that hadn’t occurred to me like: “What were the consequences? What happened next?”
In a matter of minutes my mind was blown away. I quickly began to understand the reasons behind Ali’s actions, and realized that as painful as it was to refuse to serve and defend America, Muhammad Ali actually had a point behind his actions. In fact, he had a very good point.
The documentary spent around 45 minutes addressing the complicated issue of communism, the Vietnam War, the USSR, the hippie movement, Martin Luther King, John Lennon, and the similar context of the culture of the time. Still, every film, every piece of interview, every extract in which Ali spoke, made more and more sense with every passing minute. All of a sudden I started to feel proud. Whereas the hippies were a bunch of… well, hippies, and other personalities like Dr. King and John Lennon were… well, personalities, there was something different about Ali. I remembered my mom’s words. Ali spoke with sincerity and from his heart. He wasn’t looking to congegrate thousands of people with peace songs like John Lennon, or was academically skillful and politically trained as Martin Luther King. Ali simply spoke from his heart what he believed was -and is- right: war is wrong. Killing people for no reason, is wrong; and he, just like any other 25 year-old from Kentucky, or Idaho, or Oregon, or Michigan, had no reason to fight against other people, and die for absolutely no cause that wasn’t peace.
The film then followed the overrule of his sentence by the US Supreme Court, and his glorious comeback to recover the title that at first I believed had been justifiably taken away from him, but that now I understood that in reality what had happened was that three years of his peak time were taken away from him.
As the documentary reached the part where Ali was about to face Foreman in Zaire, I thought to myself: “This is it. This is IT. He will win this fight.” It’s hard to put yourself in the context of 1974, but I guess I could understand why most people thought he wasn’t going to beat Foreman. I mean, this guy Foreman was huge and he had knocked Frazier out six times in just two rounds, and knocked out Ken Norton out like twice in two rounds as well. Ali on the other hand hadn’t been able to even beat them without going the full distance of 15 rounds, and hadn’t been able to send either of them to the canvas even once.
Finally, once the documentary reached the part in which Ali knocked Foreman out for good, and he was crowed as World Champion, it was at that precise point that everything came together and I had finally understood that Ali is The Greatest.
Disclaimer I: today’s article is spoiler free for Firefly. However, it does contain major spoilers of Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead.
Disclaimer II: do not watch Firefly. You have been warned.
A couple of days ago a friend of mine asked if I had finally watched the film “Serenity”. I gave him the same answer I’ve been giving for years: “I’m doing my best effort to avoid watching it, for as long as I can.”
I became acquianted with Firefly about nine years ago after reading several articles that praised it as arguably “The Best TV Series of All-Time.” It felt strange that I hadn’t heard about this show that was constantly rated 10/10 in almost every review I had read. Keep in mind that this was in 2007 -five years after Firefly had been cancelled-. I was initially skeptical of all the praise the show received. Normally I’m very skeptical when series and films are extremely overhyped, so to think that there was a TV show worth a 10 out of 10 ranking was kind of unthinkable. Then one Wednesday night I finally pulled myself together to watch episode one. Next thing I knew, I was at the end of episode fourteen -the last one of the series-. By that time it was dawn, the Sun had risen and I was late for work after having pulled an all-nighter. It didn’t matter though, because I had just finished watching The Best TV Show of All-Time.
Firefly was produced, filmed and aired during the fall of 2002. Its was created by Joss Whedon, who at the time had already been the successful creator of two great shows: Buffy The Vampire Slayer and its spin-off, Angel. Whedon of course as you may know, today rides the glorified surfboard of success carved by with the Marvel Universe, thanks to his involvement in directing the Avengers films.
Firefly’s cast starred a relatively unknown group of actors, but make no mistake: the unknown factor was inversely proportional to their performances on-screen. The plot was perhaps the most original, inventive, creative and unique idea seen on any television show up until that point, and -in my humble opinion, hold up even to this day. Everything else surrounding its production was nothing short of perfect. The attention to detail was particularly exquisite. Simply put, Firefly rightfully so deserves being called The Best Show of All Time, or in the worse case scenario, it deserves to be part of the conversation among other great shows that came after it. So why did such a great show fail back when it was airing in 2002?
For unknown reasons, it seems as if FOX Executives perceived that Firefly was the exact opposite of what everyone who has seen it think of it nowadays. Apparently, they didn’t understand the premise of the show and didn’t buy into the idea of having an extremely detailed and well-paced show with a deep character development that could be explored on for several seasons, similar to what we have today with Lost. They also didn’t understand the mixture of scenarios in a futuristic world that divided society and classes, kind of like we have today with Game of Thrones. They also probably couldn’t grasp the complex language spoken throughout the episodes and the implication (or lack thereof) that each line of dialogue had towards the plot, similar to what happens in Breaking Bad. They probably couldn’t believe that audiences would be able to live with the amount of suspense generated by the many cliffhangers the show had. And they probably couldn’t deal with the fast paced episodes where the characters are racing against the clock in order to survive, kind of like like it happens in 24. You probably noticed that all the shows I used as analogies, came after Firefly. I could go on…
It is not clear why when Firefly first aired, FOX Network Executives came up with a plan to ruin any chance it had to succeed right from the start. Something as simple as the order of the episodes was sabotaged by the network. Instead of airing the show’s first episode in its premiere, they aired the second episode. The following week, they aired episode #3, which was followed by episode #6. In the end, this is how FOX aired Firefly:
I am definitely no Television Executive, but I do know that when you air a sequenced episode plot driven show they way it was did by FOX -including airing the show’s Pilot/First episode last-, you’re pretty much setting up yourself for a monumental failure. Imagine if in Breaking Bad, Walter White was already killing the main antagonist in its second episode, or if Greg was already dead by the third episode of The Walking Dead. In addition to the episode airing disaster, FOX invested very lightly in the show’s marketing campaign, and most of the ads promoted it as an action/comedy show, instead of Sci-Fi/Adventure/Drama. Imagine if Game of Thrones‘ marketing campaign promoted the upcoming season as “Action/Comedy.”
Needless to say, Firefly’s ratings never took off, and after only airing eleven episodes, it was cancelled. The remaining three episodes were aired almost a year later in July of 2003. After that, Firefly was definitely gone forever, with its legacy now being carried on by 24, Breaking Bad, Lost, Battlestar Galactica, Game of Thrones, and even The Big Bang Theory.
Joss Whedon had planned Firefly to run for about four or five seasons, which makes sense when you see all episodes in the correct order. It was a show so ahead of its time the only parallel I can come up with is in terms of both production quality, profound complexity, variety of plots and social impact is Game of Thrones. It should be quite clear for anyone who watches its first season, that you there will be seven or eight more seasons. In contrast, Firefly’s fate can be summarized the following way: imagine you watch Game of Thrones’ first season, and all of a sudden with no warning, HBO cancels the show right after the Eddard Stark’s execution. That is exactly how every single person who has watched Firefly feels at the end of the fourteenth episode.
There are several reasons why every single person who watches Firefly, unavoidably rates the series a 10 out of 10. Apart from the plot, the high production values with careful attention to detail, there are many implicit and explicit motives to get hooked by the show. Even despite having less main characters than Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead, the depth and complexity of Firefly’s characters is so unique and incredibly appealing, that viewers will easily find one of them to relate to.
Joss Whedon made several attempts with other networks to pick up where FOX had left Firefly off, but unfortunately none came to fruition. Fans also sent tens of thousands of petition letters to FOX and other networks to try to revive the show. Only Family Guy managed to achieve this rare feat. After three years of failed negotiations, Joss Whedon released a film called “Serenity“, which is supposed to be somewhat of a transition between season’s one finale and the possibility of an eventual second season. The movie is rated highly by most fans who have seen it, however it drags a terrible side-effect: if you have the pleasure of watching Firefly in the correct sequential order as it was intended to be seen, the final episode (#14) ends with a very ambiguous scene that makes Inception‘s ending look as clear as crystal water. There are also at least dozens of unanswered questions from both the main and side plots that leave you with no other option but to wonder what direction the would have the show gone. From my understanding, Serenity tries to answer the ambiguous ending of Firefly’s final episode and it also tries to answer at least some of the dozens of unanswered questions; it also tries to give the viewer a glimpse into which direction Firefly would have headed. However from my understanding -and as to be expected- most of what it delivers is not enough and falls short from wrapping the series as viewers were expecting.
The cruelty of watching Firefly (like I said, in the correct order) is that as every episode goes by, you think things are getting clearer and you are actually understanding the show better, only to find out that as each episode goes by, the plot deepens more and you desire of knowing what will happen next grows. By knowing that the show only has fourteen episodes, your subconscious can’t help but to do a mental countdown as move forward, and you beg that things will end up in a satisfying manner plot-wise speaking. Eventually as you approach the finale, your mind and your heart beg for the inevitable: the series not to end. That’s why I haven’t seen Serenity and most likely why I will never watch it.
So remember, whatever you do after reading this review and as stated at the top, do not watch Firefly, unless you want to be left with a huge open and unfinished chapter in your life, in which you will spend a considerable amount of time wondering what was going to happen to Mal, Zoe, Wash, Inara, Jayne, Kaylee, Simon, River and Book, had the series continued through all its seasons as Joss Whedon intended.
There are many things in life I don’t understand and probably never will.
One thing that stands above is, why was the best TV series of All-Time, cancelled and was never revived?
In my previous entry, I wrote about the planning, strategy development and overall direction a company leader needs to set in order to succeed, and provided an example utilizing an orchestra director’s as an analogy. This thesis can also be applied for filmmaking as well, and I believe most Hollywood directors, producers and script writers should be able to apply it. Today I will explore why I make this suggestion,
A few months ago, audiences all over the world were treated to Star Wars’ revamping into a supposed new universe created by a film called The Force Awakens, which as I reviewed, is a straight forward soft reboot and redefined unimaginative version of the original trilogy. Months later, we face the same path with The Peanuts Movie.
I take issue on this topic because Peanuts is my favorite cartoon.
I skipped this movie on its release because after watching the trailer, I immediately knew it was going to be a soft-reboot and redefined unimaginative product that collected the most well-known jokes of the original Peanuts Specials. I finally watched it a couple of nights ago, and it turned out to be exactly as I predicted.
Let me start by saying that like The Force Awakens, The Peanuts Movie is a good movie, if and only if you remove it from the Peanuts universe. This is: if somehow you magically have all your Peanuts/Charlie Brown/Snoopy memories erased from your brain in a similar mental treatment as the one portrayed in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, then only in that case there would be a definitive lauded appreciation for the movie. It’s funny, it’s witty, it’s romantic, and it’s a good kids film for adults. The thing is, like it happened with The Force Awakens, Peanuts Movie features and uses, the same Peanuts characters and in the same jokes and situations we have known for all our lives.
Same 40-year-old joke
Original Peanuts Specials were ahead of their time. You never knew what would come next out of their mouths, as jokes were very subtle and sometimes even over the tone of a PG film. Of course, Schulz and Melendez knew how to get away with that. A fine example comes from a scene in which Sally and Charlie Brown are walking home together from a school day, and Sally shares to her older brother that her first grade teacher sent her to the principal’s office because she complained about the difficulty of the assigned class activity, which was to “Draw a Farm.” Sally complained about the absurdity of the task, particularly because she herself hadn’t even seen an actual farm, and went on to dare her classmates to see if anyone could be able to “draw a good cow leg.” At one point in the conversation with Charlie Brown, Sally says: “So I got sent to the principal’s office because I couldn’t draw a cow’s leg. I’ll bet Picasso couldn’t draw a cow’s leg when he was in the first grade. I’ll even bet Bjorn Borg couldn’t draw a cow’s leg!” This shows the subtle tone of the original Peanuts’ humor.
Peanuts Movie begins with the Linus and Lucy theme, a reminiscing memory of the Schultz days. Unfortunately as time goes by, it keeps refurbishing all the same old Peanuts’ jokes:
Charlie Brown being unable of flying a kite.
Pig Pen being, well, Pig Pen.
Lucy taking Linus’ blanket.
Shroeder playing Beethoven’s 5th.
Patty and Marcy.
Lucy as psychiatrist… still charging 5 cents.
The Red Baron.
..and, an inadequate and incorrect interpretation Little Red Haired Girl, a topic that deserves its own separate entry and one I will not be getting into.
How could a few ideas should have been presented in a both funny and respectful way for all fans? Let’s take for instance Lucy’s Psychiatric help. Imagine if Lucy’s fees sign would have now read 50 Dollars instead of 5 Cents, and have Charlie Brown would walk-by, stop in his tracks, look at the sign, look at Lucy and say something like “Wow, last time I was here you charged 5 cents!” and then have Lucy complain or maybe say something about inflation since the last time Charlie Brown visited her, and then have Charlie Brown would glance at himself in disbelief and have no choice but to deposit a $50 bill in Lucy’s can, and have Lucy say something like “I love the sound of Grants Grants, Grants!” Of course, the bill wouldn’t make any sound because it’s paper, but that is the way Peanuts’ jokes work. They are subtle.
When you watch this film as a Peanut lover, you cannot get past the reality that every single joke or scene is something you have already seen before. It’s like the director or the script writer said, “We have to make a Charlie Brown film. Let’s take the most classic jokes, put them inside a blender and whatever comes out, that’s our film!”
40-year-old joke
Don’t get me wrong. I’m ok with re-using jokes, but not all jokes.
In Bon Voyage Charlie Brown, we see Charlie Brown, Linus, Patty and Marcie, flying to Paris as exchange students. Somehow, Snoopy and Woodstock not only manage to join them, but they become leaders of the trip. They fly on first class, they rent the car, they play a match at Wimbledon’s Centre Court, they go out partying and drinking at night and they manage to save the Chateau from a fire. In this film, not once, not ONE time do we see Charlie Brown flying a kite, PigPen being PigPen (with the exception of the farewell at the airport), Lucy working as a psychiatrist, Snoopy dogfigthing the Red Baron… and so on. Think about it: Bon Voyage only features four of the main characters (plus Snoopy and Woodstock), yet it’s still a very good movie!
I rate all Peanuts specials highly, and Bon Voyage is one of the best. Its humour is original and doesn’t come from old refurbished jokes, but instead comes from the absurdity of seeing infancy being lived as adulthood. Think about it: Snoopy -as ringleader of a group of kids- not only rents, but drives a car in a foreign country! To add more to the absurdity, he causes a major traffic accident by making a complete stop in a highway, the second after he leaves the rental dealership. He even gets road rage, flees the scene and the gang doesn’t feel the slightest contempt for the affected drivers.
To this day, I watch this scene and find myself replaying it dozens of times. This is Peanuts’ humour. Refurbished jokes are not.
Let’s pick another special -the one most people regard as the best- Charlie Brown Christmas. Peanuts fans know and are ok, with Lucy sitting on Shroeder’s piano. This is like a classic must scene of Peanuts, similar to Southpark having the four boys at the bus stop. The beauty of this sequence is that regardless of the context Lucy and Shroeder are in, the specials always manage to do something different in their interaction. We know Schroeder always plays Beethoven when he sits on the piano and we know Lucy hates that. But what happens when he plays something different?
I also couldn’t get why did Snoopy need a narrator most of the time he was onscreen. Since when does Snoopy need a narrator? Did the director forget that Sometimes Peanuts don’t even need to speak to deliver a timeless classic joke because the jokes come from the subtle context where they are set, as in this scene from the Thanksgiving Special:
Or in the one where Snoopy gets drunk on Root Beer? Snoopy, a dog, goes to a local bar to hang out with Woodstock, plays some big band music in the jukebox, and keeps ordering root beer after root beer. I was a kid when I first watched this and I knew he was actually drinking beer, because the glass may have said “Root Beer” but the content didn’t have to be Root Beer, or just Beer for that matter. Either way Charles Schulz wins and one kept wondering whether if Snoopy was really drinking beer or root beer. That is the joke, and not one word is spoken.
Finally, if the Thanksgiving Special had an original unique song, and the Christmas Special had one too, and Bon Voyage had one too, and Life is a Circus had one too… then why did The Peanuts Movie did not have one?
I am completely clueless as of why The Peanuts Movie had no other choice but to compile the most overused and typical jokes from all its history to create a film that cost $99 million dollars, where most of its content was refurbished.
Today I came across this very interesting article, that captures in one sentence, the constant affirmation what every Venezuelan knows and constantly preaches: Properly managed, Venezuela should be a very rich country. The thing is, it isn’t, which begs to ask the of question “why”, which brings a very simple answer: “Because it’s run the wrong way.”
Most of Venezuela’s middle class -who is composed by opposition followers- blame previously Chavez and now Nicolas Maduro’s government’s strict and somewhat questionable policies in all aspects of society, including economic, political and legal country affairs. While a case can be made to attest the opposition claims, a broader picture of how Venezuela’s society is functioning must also be considered.
I was having lunch with a friend yesterday in a restaurant located in an upscale mall in Caracas and after finishing our meals, we decided to go for a relaxing walk that eventually took us to the most visited place any Venezuelan goes to on their daily routine: a supermarket. Once inside, we noticed that a shipment of several packages of flour had just made its way into the store. Seeing the opportunity, we grabbed our corresponding allowed two packages of flour (1 kg each) which is the maximum a shopper can purchase during a week. In general, all Venezuelan supermarkets have regulatory controls implemented by the government that only allow shoppers to purchase a maximum number of goods during a seven day period. In the case of flour, one can buy two packages, each one costing two cents of a dollar. Yes, your read right: $0.02. Prices of other regulated products such as milk, sugar, vegetable oil, ketchup, pasta, are also around the single digit dollar cent value. The catch of course is, that unless you catch an extremely lucky break like my friend and I did where you happen to be in the store at the same time the goods arrived, you will be forced to endure hours of long waiting in endless lines as people flood the stores by the thousands to get their hands on their groceries at very cheap prices.
Luck is an extremely important factor when going grocery shopping in Venezuela, because unless you have an insider tip from someone working in the supply-chain distribution, there is no way for you to know when there will be stock of what you need. This is why supermarkets in Venezuela are normally deserted. On this particular day however, after grabbing our two packages of flour, we ended up spending over an hour at the store, because it took us fifty minutes to checkout and pay. Yes, you read it right: two minutes to shop and fifty minutes to checkout. In other words, one could say:
“Run the right way, a Supermarket checkout should take no longer than five minutes.” But in Venezuela, it doesn’t… because the supermarket is run the wrong way, and if you stand in a Venezuelan’s supermarket checkout line for fifty minutes, you will understand part of Venezuela’s ongoing crisis. In other words, you will be able to understand why Venezuela should be a very rich country, but it isn’t. Keep in mind this is just one supermarket. There must be hundreds of supermarkets in the city; thousands in the country… each one run the wrong way.
Moving towards deregulation of these products would be the right course of action to end this madness, which is a decision that must come from the government, but if they can’t (or won’t) drop fixed prices and distribution controls on regulated products, there are many possible options that can be implemented to improve the checkout nightmare:
1. Have one (or more) cashier for non-regulated products: if a costumer is buying an $8 pasta sauce and a set of knives, they shouldn’t go through the same fate than those just buying regulated products.
2. Have one (or more) cashier for senior citizens: it’s inhuman to have a senior citizen standing up for fifty minutes, when all he wants to do is buy food.
3. Have one (or more) cashier with fast dial-up/high speed connectivity with bank lines: paying with credit/debit cards is supposed to be quicker than paying with cash, not slower.
4. Have one (or more) cashier for express or fast checkout/less than five products.
5. Ban cashiers from using their cellphones while at work if they have customers waiting in line (or ban them altogether).
6. Have one (or more) pre-checkout cashier, so a customer can already have their order taken care of and then they would only have to pay when they arrive at the cashier.
I hardly believe any of the major supermarket chains will lose a substantial amount of money, if they would decide to incorporate one or all of these suggestions.
I will wrap up this entry for now, as I have more material to cover for another post and in my book as well, where you will learn how other vital and primary core components of Venezuelan’s economy, are also run… the wrong way.
