4 posts tagged “george”
Watching any award show except the Oscars has become tedious. Especially music award telecasts. Too much shrieking from the audience. Too many drunken or unprepared "presenters." (Tip: there are cue cards, genius. You have to be able to read 'em. Wear contacts, glasses, or binoculars. Lay off the martinis. Do your job.)
So I hardly give the Academy of Country Music awards a second thought. But I scanned the list of nominees, just to be sure George Strait made the cut. (He did, so there really is a god.)
And then I saw, way at the bottom, the following categories:
Nightclub of the Year
Casino of the Year
Excuse me? Casino of the Year? Isn't that a place that does its best to separate oxygen-bottle-toting people from their money? What does a casino have to do with advancing the art of country music? Who wrote a song called, "I Left my Chips in Your Heart?"
Strictly my opinion: nightclubs and bars are entitled to awards from the hospitality, restaurant, and loan shark industries. No whiskey mill or gambling joint deserves an award from a country music association -- at least, not an association that still refers to women musicians as "cuties" on its website.
You have to wonder why some people are great leaders, and others think leadership merely means okaying someone's vacation time. (And harassing them afterward for work that didn't get done while I was on vacation.)
As near as I can figure, the best leaders are those that demand hard work, yet coach the employee, while expressing an interest in the people they lead. I knew one former manager's kids' and wife's names, although I'm certain the manager didn't know the names of my family members. And the coaching? Non-existent.
I got to see two sides of great leadership. Antonio Perez, the Kodak CEO, has spent the last four years transforming Kodak from an arrogant, somnolent film company to a digital imaging company that's working to listen to its customers. Lots of jobs went away. Buildings went away. Those weren't easy decisions.
Last Friday, Mr. Perez did something remarkable. He announced that Kodak would step up, after years of cutbacks, and provide $10 million to expand and renovate the Eastman Theatre, a great classic music hall that's home to the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.
The orchestra, the theatre, the University of Rochester, and its Eastman School of Music all exist because of Kodak's founder, George Eastman. Realizing that his company needed to attract talent to a pseudo-Arctic mill town, Eastman gave incredible amounts of resources to make this town a cultural oasis (even in the dead of winter).
Perez isn't a Rochester native. He's lived all over the world, and spent many years in California.
But he took an interest in this community, and drove the company to re-invest in Rochester after many years of cutbacks. Some former Kodak employees will likely vilify him for it. But committing resources back into this community was long overdue. He did the right thing.
That's leadership. Anyone in Washington listening?
At some point, someone's going to discover that iPods -- by their nature -- are portable. They fit in a pocket. And they come with earphones.
But this hasn't stopped an endless purveyance of products offering iPod docks and connectivity. I don't mind a stereo system or a desktop radio that accomodates an iPod. But this thing?
It looks like a leftover prop from the 1970s "Buck Rodgers" TV series. A date for Twiki, the dwarfish robot with the voice of Mel Blanc.
George Foreman, the legendary boxer, has leased his name yet again to the iPod Outdoor Grill. It has 10-watt speakers. Because the grill is electric it requires two separate plugs. And from this photo, it sure looks like you need to bend under a hot electric grilling surface to install and adjust your iPod.
Maybe if it had a remote...?
No. It's just dumb. Outdoor grilling requires wood, charcoal, propane, or something else to give your food that grilled flavor. And oh, by the way, what's to keep that dripping hot grease from redecorating your iPod?
And you just know, somewhere down the road, that -- like every George Foreman grill ever made -- it will end up at a yard sale with a bad switch. You you'll be left with the world's ugliest, underpowered iPod speaker system.
Dave's Rule No. 6: if you combine two or more functions in a single device, and one of those functions fails, you're now the owner of an expensive boat anchor.
George Eastman was the sort of man who could have whatever he wanted. Wealthy beyond the point of avarice from making Kodak a household name, he could have owned all the toys the early 20th century offered. Of course, they didn't have big black private helicopters then, but you get the idea.
He didn't marry. He didn't mess around, to the best of anyone's knowledge. (Rumors occasionally suggest he was gay, but you'd think that would have been verified by now.) So what tastes did Eastman indulge? Music. Art. Big-game hunting. And -- amazingly -- remarkable gardens in the backyard of his home.
Eastman passed on in 1932, but the house and the gardens are still thriving. Occasionally, I'm permitted to wander around the gardens at George Eastman House. These photos -- captured on a warm June evening -- give you a sense of what an oasis a garden can be.
This is the place I try to bring my friends to see when they come to Rochester.
