On the Road-Yankee Stadium

So now I'm really confused. A top New York residential broker told me this week that the New York City residential market is either at the bottom or just a smidge away. Residential real estate is not my bag and so I defer to the experts. But in addition this broker is closing deals, on expensive apartments, at deep discounts, with all-cash buyers. So, in that type of transaction it's not the capital (like what's preventing the commercial transactions from their resurgence) but it is the value or should I say the discount (which of course is the other missing link in commercial real estate transactions...what is the right price to sell or buy at). But any promising news about the economy and in particular the real estate industry is a light, albeit possibly a dim one, that may be at the end of the tunnel. But as we all know, we'll only know when we've hit the bottom after we've hit it and can look back and say, 'Yup, that sure was the bottom of the market.'

Tuesday night my son and I went to the 'new' Yankee Stadium for the first time. Standing outside before the game brought back some great memories of the 'old' Yankee Stadium which is still standing right across the street shrouded in demolition netting. It's very sad and somewhat dumb as I believe the only reason the new stadium was built was based on greed as a function of the number of 'suites' that could be added. On the #4 train you get a very brief glimpse into the old stadium and it looks like something that used to be loved but has been abandoned. The field is ripped up instead of being the beautiful green turf that it once was. But it looks like in a flash Mickey Mantle, Tom Tresh, Clete Boyer and Moose Skowron could be jogging out of the dugout to take their respective positions. One other thing bothered me about the new stadium (besides a small bottle of water for $5.00): they built it on 'my field.' Let me explain. When I was in college I was a pitcher. We had a terrible team or at least terrible records: 3-21 and 4-17 in my two years. But I did win one game. It was a shutout of CCNY (City College of New York) on their homefield (in the shadows of Yankee Stadium and now covered up by the new stadium). It was a 2-0 shutout; the first time they had been shutout on their home field in a long time. There was a little piece in the NYTimes the next day "Felix Shuts Out CCNY 2-0 on a Six-hitter." I believe still have that clipping. But that field is gone and in a very weird political situation (are there any other kind these days in particular?) the plan to put a park on the site of the old stadium is stalled partially due to a debate over whether the home plate of the main field to be built needs to be in exactly the same place as the home plate of the old stadium. Some locals want to make sure that the stadium is not totally erased similar to what happened when Ebbetts Field (former home of the Brooklyn Dodgers) and The Polo Grounds (NY Giants) were razed for apartment projects. The sad part to me is that a perfectly good stadium is going to be demolished in favor of a new one which not only costs the taxpayers a lot of money, but also puts a lot of money into the pockets of the owners of the team. However, I have a funny feeling that the Yankee owners (one of which is a former boss of mine) may have outsmarted themselves with the prices that they're charging for everything and the elite setup of a number of 'clubs' within the stadium which require membership above and beyond just the price of tickets (which go up to $2500 per seat per game!). Greed kills; it kills deals, it kills friendships and it kills business relationships. It's an ugly character trait and one which has become all to present in our lifetimes. Perhaps this economic turmoil we're experiencing will have a good effect in the end in that some humility will replace greed. But I don't really believe that and I think we're already seeing signs of the return of greed at certain levels of the work force while more and more Americans struggle, like they never have before, to keep a roof over their family's head and food on the table. The have vs. have-not syndrome is alive and well but it's not a healthy ratio. Hopefully, someone will wake up and realize that the majority of citizens are the ones that should be paid attention to and not the thin minority that play at lofty heights and whose economic disruption has been the release of a nanny or giving up the $45,000 per year private grammar school.

Something new I learned about this week: Area 51.
Have you ever heard of this? Area 51 is a nickname for a military base that is located in the southern portion of Nevada 83 miles north-northwest of downtown Las Vegas. Situated at its center, on the southern shore of Groom Lake, is a large secretive military airfield. The base's primary purpose is to support development and testing of experimental aircraft and weapons systems.[Other names used for the facility include Dreamland, Paradise Ranch, Home Base, Watertown Strip, Groom Lake and most recently Homey Airport. The intense secrecy surrounding the base, the very existence of which the U.S. government barely acknowledges, has made it the frequent subject of conspiracy theories and a central component to unidentified flying object (UFO) folklore.

Once again, real life is better than the movies. Oh, one other thing: The Las Vegas minor league baseball team is called....you guessed it: The Las Vegas 51's!




On the road....
Florida
Chicago
Cleveland
Boston
Atlanta

Photo: Hotel Nikko, San Francisco





These are my thoughts and not that of my employer.

On the Road-West Coast

Something is going on when you read an article in The New Yorker magazine that in one breath mentions legendary concert promoter Bill Graham and the fact that the secondary market for Bruce Springsteen (and others) is similar to the CMBS market. Do we have to pollute everything with over analysis? I think that while this piece is not considered to be the type of journalism that catapulted Woodstein (Woodward and Bernstein) to fame and fortune, it reeks of the kind of journalism that, for my money, just stretches to far to make a point, get noticed and perhaps convert an article into a book where tickets to your book signing party will not, never, ever be sold on the secondary market. Anyway, it just seemed a little far-fetched to me.

Thanks to everyone who wrote me this week about my piece last week on the reunion. Perhaps there is a group of people in your life whom you’d like to connect with. Actually, one of our group would make a great reunion planner! Again, it was a very poignant experience for me and for all of us.

I also received a number of notes about where the real estate market is today. More than not, our colleagues’ feel that another shoe is yet to drop in the commercial real estate industry. With the stock market having had a very good week (although the conversion rate of Canadian to U.S. dollars dropping which is pissing me off) perhaps things are picking up. However, as a taxi driver reminded me this week, “There are still more and more jobs being lost, more and more people losing their homes and more and more people struggling to get by.” So I guess there are two stories in this naked country; those promulgated by the media and our elected officials and those that are the grassroots truth. No one I know is adding to their wardrobe these days, even with ‘sale’ signs as plentiful as weeds in flowerbeds where the gardener has been cut back from every week to every month. This business with the car industry I just don’t know how I feel about it. What makes them so special that they deserve this kind of incentivization just so they can make sales? How about all the other businesses, those owned by individuals (not individuals owning stock but individuals owning and operating the actual business). How about all those businesses closing? Don’t those folks deserve the same help that these characters in Detroit and elsewhere are getting? I just don’t get it. I must be missing something.

In 1990-95 when I was intimately involved both as an RTC contractor and a workout officer for a large commercial bank there came a time when a developer having gone bankrupt was a badge of honor. Well maybe honor is too strong, but a badge that brought with it survivorship and some humility. I saw this first in Texas, perhaps because as real estate egos go, Texans liked theirs big. But it happened elsewhere and from individual to individual there was a difference in how they handled those humbling days. After making it through the gauntlet, these folks were judged by how they behaved during those difficult times when some moved to Florida or other states just so their homes could not be taken in a bankruptcy and some simply did the right thing. Once trust has been damaged, in business and personal things, it’s hard to win it back. But many of those real estate junkies did live to return to the mountaintop even if the mountain was more of a mound than a mount. In some ways, the same thing is going on today. Investors are watching closely to see how their managers behave during these tough times and it surprises me to hear that not everyone is on their best behavior. Haven’t they all read the Real Estate Boy Scout Manual? And then again, that is what differentiates people and companies from one another. It’s easy to behave properly when things are going well and everything is free and easy. It’s when things get tough that character shows and going forward investors will not get fooled again.

The oldest survivor of WWI, Harry Patch, died on July 25 at age 111. As reported in the NYTimes today, his funeral was a national event in England. But a couple of quotes of Harry's about his war experience, only stated after 80 years of silence, struck a note with me: "War is the calculated and condoned slaughter of human beings too often sent into combat as cannon fodder by politicians who should have settled their conflicts by dueling among themselves. War isn't worth one life!" Peace to you Harry.


On the road to…..
Florida
Georgia
North Carolina
Ohio
Oregon
Pennsylvania

Album of the week: Blood Red by The Groove Kings. Irene Marc & Howard Forman’s newest combination of memorable songs, pure and rich vocals and hook-laden, guitar-god tunes.

Photo: Me & Scott Jacobs performing at The Woods, Hedgesville, WV




These are my personal thoughts and not that of my employer.

Special OTR-Forest Hills Reunion Summary

Eight guys who had at least one thing in common: we all grew up in Forest Hills, NY. Four of us went to one grammar school, PS 175 and three went to another, PS 220. The eighth guy joined the group in seventh grade. We got together this weekend to play some golf and have fun but what it mostly turned out to be was to learn about each other. Five of us are on second marriages. Amongst us we have 22 children and a number of grandchildren. "How did we end up joining forces in Stephen A. Halsey Junior High School?" one guy asked. "It was all about sports. Basketball, football, baseball, roller hockey and, as I found out, some ice hockey played on the lake in Flushing Meadow park with a puck but with the players in rubbers rather than skates. We also remembered other things, some relating to restaurants or stores in the neighborhood, to sledding in the "Green Jungle", a square block amidst medium and, for that time, high-rise apartments, where a single homeowner held out and wouldn't sell, thus preventing development for many years to come. But mostly we told each other about our lives. All the other guys were together, more or less, through college (I moved away in the middle of my junior year of high school) and almost all of them attended the same undergraduate school, Queens College. So for me, hearing their stories about those years, was fascinating. We laughed so much this weekend and we shared things as openly as I've ever with anyone. There was just a comfortable familiarity , an implied trust and safety. In junior high school, all of us was part of what was called the S.P. program, which I recall stood for Special Progress. In it you had two choices: be in an accelerated class or be in a class where you skipped eight grade. We all chose the latter, or at least our parents did and while we didn't do a formal survey, a number of us wish we hadn't skipped that grade. Those years when boys are 13 and 14 are difficult socially and as we all know men are less mature than women, perhaps throughout our lives. So we shared stories of late blooming, of no one really having a serious girlfriend, perhaps until college. But in addition to learning about each other, we talked about other people. A few of us brought old school photos and we had a great time trying to remember people's names or what building they lived in or in some cases what we had heard over the years that people were doing. This is a bright bunch of guys and being around them made me miss that I hadn't had the chance to stay with them longer when we were growing up. The move my parents made to NJ was devastating to me and I'm not sure I rebounded from it for a long time.

The make-up of the group is: three lawyers (one a corporate/banking litigator in CA, one a tax specialist on Long Island and one an immigration lawyer in New York and all top-notch in their fields); two PhD's (one an educator and administrator and one the head of research for the premier magazine readership polling firm in the country); one doctor who is on the leading edge of integrated health care; one a recently retired former IBM exec (the only one of the group who is retired) and me. I learned a lot from these guys as we talked about our careers and asked questions, delving deeper into their industry or into things that meant something to us personally. One of the guys was an early student activist and involved person. Several had put together a little band after I moved that was called (at least at the beginning) Howie G and the Constipated Three. It must have been a curious sound: clarinet, saxaphone and guitar (with a drummer added later) but they played some gigs and the guitarist has been a life-long player. At the resort, we coerced the one man band to allow us to sit in and while it wasn't perfect it was fun with the best of our three tune set (cut short because the paid musician seemed to be getting a little jealous that the full-house was into the whole thing) being a singalong of "I Saw Her Standing There." You know what I mean?

We played golf or for some of us at least at it. Two of the guys had been on the high school golf team and others have played some more some less over the years but it couldn't have been more perfect as we had two foursomes which included one full-time driver/color commentator. Some of the guys have been in touch over the years and some are still close friends, having attended their families significant activities and those of their children. I have been separate from all that for a number of reasons but it was never due to lack of interest in them, just circumstances. You know what I mean?

We made a phone call to a girl that a number of us had thought was our girlfriend in junior high. She was a good sport and confirmed that only two of us really had been her boyfriend to use that term as much as can be for a junior high school romance. Although, in talking about some of our children, times have certainly changed in the social sense in that kids of more recent generations, in addition to being more mature than we were at a comparable age, seem to get involved in more serious relationships earlier in their lives than we did.

There were no big egos and no jerks. There was generosity and true friendship and

camaraderie and love. But it was surreal in some senses, especially when we parted to go our separate ways today, back to 'real life' but with the knowledge that we not only reconnected but that some of the social challenges of growing up a year younger than our other classmates were shared by all of us, although I'm not sure it had ever been discussed openly before.

At the end of the day we all agreed that we were pretty much the same people as we were when we were kids and that didn't seem to be a bad thing at all.

Photo: The Woods golf course, Hedgesville, WV

Reunion resort of the week: The Woods is an excellent place to have any kind of reunion (or even modest size [up to 150] conference.

On the Road...Austin & Hedgesville, WV

Today I'm writing to you from The Woods, a resort in Hedgesville, WV where yesterday eight guys, including me, who all grew up in Forest Hills (Queens), NY, are getting together for a reunion with some of us seeing each other for the first time in more than forty years! In this group are three attorneys, a doctor, two PhD's, a retired IBM exec and me (funny that one of the guys said he had gone back to read some of these columns and doesn't for the life of him have any idea what I do). Amongst us we have twenty-two children and also a number of grandchildren. It's very interesting what one person will remember about another person but that person doesn't remember it at all. Dinner last night was our first group get together and I will have much more to write to you about this wonderful experience next week. But suffice it to say that this is very, very special, for all of us and it is going to be one memorable weekend fueled by the memory of memories. It is interesting that different people remember different things about others and that the person they remember something about sometimes has no recollection of it at all. Oh that we could see each other as others see us. (BTW, I am the Head of Real Estate Client Relations-North America for Aviva Investors, the global asset management arm of Aviva pls, the world's fifth largest insurance group. We have +/- $36Bn in real estate assets under management globally including +/-$6Bn in multi-manager and fund of funds strategies).

Real Capital Analytics (RCA) published their July Capital Trends Monthly reports this week. Here are a few morsels to take chew on this weekend:

1. Retail: Many buyers remain on the sidelines until more distressed situations become available. The steep plunge in average prices reflects some market movement but is exacerbated by the dearth of sales needed to set market clearing pricing. This conclusion is also borne out by the most recent Moody’s/REAL Commercial Property Price Index data, which show a year-over-year decline of 18.5% for retail properties nationwide in the first quarter of 2009.

2. Industrial: Buyers continue to add downward pressure to pricing as motivated sellers are becoming more accepting of reduced prices. Average pricing per square foot fell to its lowest level since 2005. The most recent Moody’s/REAL Commercial Property Price Index data showed a decline of 12.3% for industrial properties yoy for Q1’09.

3. Apartment: Virtually all the growth in sales volume in the second quarter was from garden apartments. Financing from Fannie and Freddie is behind at least 50% of all closed deals. There are other—if faint—signs that the apartment market may be waking up as well.

4. Office: The office sector may also be poised for increased trading, as sales in June were up along with deals reported in contract. Included in these pending transactions are some larger deals, which have been rare this year. Significant declines in prices are likely behind this recent burst of activity, but many buyers remain on the side-lines until more distressed situations become available. The steep plunge in average prices last quarter reflects some market movement but is exacerbated by the dearth of significant CBD tower sales. This conclusion is also borne out by the most recent Moody’s/REAL Commercial Property Price Index data, which show a year-over-year decline of 28.7% for office properties nationwide in the first quarter of 2009. The slide was the largest for any property type.

I got a few emails about my comments last week from people who feel that the other shoe is yet to fall in the commercial real estate world. As they are closer to the deals than I, I defer to their judgment as perhaps I've become part of the group who are thinking that positive thinking and actions will bring us through. From reading RCA's full Capital Trends Monthly reports, there seem to be a mixed-bag of signals, none of which appear to be crystal clear about the industry's future.

My flight from JFK to Austin, Texas this week was one to remember. Due to a runway closure we sat for at least an hour waiting to take off. Then, from the minute we took off until the minute we landed the seatbelt sign was illuminated (as they say in airplane talk) and the plane bounced around like an apple in an apple-bobbing tank. I don't mind it but what's amazing is how many people simply ignore the sign and stumble their way back to the restroom (yes, I was seated in the last row). It's just another example to me of people not caring about anyone else (was I interested in this 300 lb guy falling into my lap saying, "Sorry", when the turbulence jolted the plane again? Anyway, we made it and I had forgotten (or never experienced, I can't remember) the feeling of walking into a blast furnace (hmmmm, did I ever actually do that before?) when walking out into the 105 degree F/40.5 C heat of Austin, Texas!

Also, this week stayed at the historic Driskill Hotel, in Austin. Reading the story behind the hotel it seems like a history of Texas in a ways. This hotel has had numerous owners since it's opening in 1886. It's currently owned by Lowe Enterprises and is operated by Destinations Hotels & Resorts. Walking into the lobby is breathtaking and both a throwback to yesteryear (whatever year that is) and a testament to modern historic renovation. The other times I've been to Austin I've stayed at a very funky motel which was converted to a hip place called the San Jose hotel.

Walking around Austin, Texas at night after a great dinner at Truluck's (see below) and hearing a band, we wandered into the back entrance of a club called Antone's. Front and center was an elderly man playing the piano and singing the blues, backed up by what appeared to be the houseband. I asked the sound guy and found that it was Pinetop Perkins, a legendary bluesman who is 95 years old! I had heard of Pinetop but couldn't have picked him out of a lineup. It was great to see him, doing his thing and fronting the band. After a few songs, he left the stage and took up what looked to be a regular alcove near the restrooms and set up his display of CD's (one of which I bought). While inspiring it was also a little sad to see a guy with his reputation and recognition, sitting all alone, smoking cigarettes and selling his own CD's. There was just something sort of unfair about it. But checking his website there are plans for celebrating his 96th birthday and seemingly no plans for retirement. When I was playing in the house band at a club called Cheers in Long Branch, NJ in the early 90's. There was a regular named Dancin' George. He was in his 80's. Came in at least several times a week and loved to dance with the young girls. He was clearly a character in a sea of regulars and we loved him...everyone did. Showing respect and kindness for 'elders' is something that should be ingrained in all of us and sometimes in situations like this I find myself thinking that at some point, many years from now, I'm going to be old and hopefully still being able to stop into a neighborhood club and have the band allow me to sit in for a few songs. I don't see myself being like Dancin' George but then again you never know how time will change things.

Congratulations to my good friend and top-notch real estate journalist Mark Cooper who told me this week that he and a colleague have purchased AsiaProperty magazine and will be launching a website in the very near future. Mark will be relocating from London to Hong Kong. All the best Mark. And in late-breaking news, congrats to Cathy Ebert, Blackrock alum who has joined Emmes Asset Management as MD of Client Relations. Congrats to you too Cathy.

One thought I pulled from a column I read this week. It's about all the technology connectivity tools that are out there:
"Try everything, but stick to what works best for you. Pick a few things every week to try, but don't invest too much time. Just because it's free doesn't mean it doesn't cost you anything. You can't make or buy more time!" I agree with this guy and I guess my trials of Linkedin and Facebook and my decision to stay with just my own address book and my trusty Gmail account are what works for me.

I used to be a regular reader of the NY Times Op-Ed columnist Tom Friedman ("The World Is Flat"and other books) until, for me, his writing became too darn promotional of his latest book. But this week, he wrote a moving piece and I'd like to share it with you in it's entirety.

59 Is the New 30

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: July 28, 2009

Last April I took a break to caddy for the former U.S. Open champion Andy North when he teamed up with Tom Watson to defend their title in the two-man Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf tournament in Savannah, Ga. So it was with more than a casual spectator’s interest that I watched in awe on Armed Forces television from Afghanistan as Watson made his amazing run at winning the British Open at age 59. Watson likes to talk about foreign affairs more than golf. So to let him know just how many people wanted him to win, I e-mailed him before the final round: “Even the Taliban are rooting for you.” Indeed, I have been struck at how many golfers and non-golfers got caught up in Watson’s historic performance — tying for the lead after four rounds at Turnberry, but losing in a playoff to the 36-year-old Stewart Cink. I was not alone in being devastated that Watson was not able to par the last hole and clinch the win. Like millions of others, I shouted at the TV as his ball ran across the 18th green — heading for trouble — “STOP! STOP! STOP!” as if I personally had something at stake. Why was that?

Many reasons. For starters, Watson’s run was freaky unusual — a 59-year-old man who had played his opening two rounds in this tournament with a 16-year-old Italian amateur — was able to best the greatest golfers in the world at least a decade after anyone would have dreamt it possible. Watching this happen actually widened our sense of what any of us is capable of. That is, when Kobe Bryant scores 70 points, we are in awe. When Tiger Woods wins by 15 strokes, we are in awe. But when a man our own age and size whips the world’s best — who are half his age — we identify.

Of course, Watson has unique golfing skills, but if you are a baby boomer you could not help but look at him and say something you would never say about Tiger or Kobe: “He’s my age; he’s my build; he’s my height; and he even had his hip replaced like me. If he can do that, maybe I can do something like that, too.”

Neil Oxman, Watson’s caddy, who is a top Democratic political consultant in his real life, told me: “After Thursday’s round with Tom, when we left the scoring tent I said to him, ‘You know, this is a thing.’ He understood what I meant. On Sunday morning, the two of us were in the corner of the locker room without another human being around, sitting in these two easy chairs facing each other behind a partition. We were chatting about stuff, and I said to him, ‘For a lot of people, what you’re doing is life-affirming.’ I took it from a story about when Betty Comden and Adolph Green — the writers of “Singin’ in the Rain” — showed Leonard Bernstein the famous scene of Gene Kelly. Bernstein said to them, ‘That scene is an affirmation of life.’ What Tom did last week was an affirmation of life.

Also, as Watson himself appreciates, the way he lost the tournament underscored why golf is the sport most like life. He hit two perfect shots on the 18th hole in the final round, and the second one bounced just a little too hard and ran through the green, leaving him a difficult chip back, which he was unable to get up and down. Had his ball stopped a foot shorter, he would have had an easy two-putt and a win.

That’s the point. Baseball, basketball and football are played on flat surfaces designed to give true bounces. Golf is played on an uneven terrain designed to surprise. Good and bad bounces are built into the essence of the game. And the reason golf is so much like life is that the game — like life — is all about how you react to those good and bad bounces. Do you blame your caddy? Do you cheat? Do you throw your clubs? Or do you accept it all with dignity and grace and move on, as Watson always has. Hence the saying: Play one round of golf with someone and you will learn everything you need to know about his character.

Golf is all about individual character. The ball is fixed. No one throws it to you. You initiate the swing, and you alone have to live with the results. There are no teammates to blame or commiserate with. Also, pro golfers, unlike baseball, football or basketball players, have no fixed salaries. They eat what they kill. If they score well, they make money. If they don’t, they don’t make money. I wonder what the average N.B.A. player’s free-throw shooting percentage would be if he had to make free throws to get paid the way golfers have to make three-foot putts?

This wonderful but cruel game never stops testing or teaching you. “The only comment I can make,” Watson told me after, “is one that the immortal Bobby Jones related: ‘One learns from defeat, not from victory.’ I may never have the chance again to beat the kids, but I took one thing from the last hole: hitting both the tee shot and the approach shots exactly the way I meant to wasn’t good enough. ... I had to finish.”

So Tom Watson got a brutal lesson in golf that he’ll never forget, but he gave us all an incredible lesson in possibilities — one we’ll never forget."

Restaurant of the week: Austin, TX-Trulucks. Great seafood. Nice ambiance. Large, diverse wine list offering tastings of more than 100 wines. 400 Colorado, Austin, TX.

On the Road to:
Atlanta, GA
Chicago, IL
Cleveland, OH
Ormond Beach, FL
Portland, OR
San Diego, San Francisco, Sacramento, CA

Photo: Day One-Hedgesville Reunion



These are my personal views and not that of my employer.

on the road....

Have things begun to turn around? I don't know but it sure feels a little like it. People are hiring (as my phone has rung three times in the past two weeks) and it seems like, "People are beginning to poke their heads out of the sand to see what's going on", as my good friend Bob White, Founder of RCA said to me tonight. And all of this bodes well for our industry. Of course, on the other side, is the brutal truth that it's very difficult to raise money for real estate related funds these days. Everyone I've spoken with in North America and Europe has pretty much the same story. And, as you can't get blood from a stone it is a time where patience is required until the institutional investors have sorted through their problems and money to be allocated to real estate has been freed up. But from times like these we all learn things. Some good, some not so good. Some of it about how people behave during difficult times (one of the key things that institutional investors and their consultants are watching carefully)....is your firm doing the right thing? For, no matter how difficult times get, doing the right thing is always, well, the right thing. And when people talk about their reputations, it's times like these when our reputations are either maintained, enhanced or damaged. So, be wise about what you choose to do or not to do as your actions will always speak louder than your words.

I'm getting concerned that we are living through a hugh sea change in communications. My concern is based on several things not the least of which is all the posters I see in the NY subway cars promoting Kindle. This week while looking at one of the posters a got the feeling that Kindle was the future of reading. How long will it take for it to replace real books? 5, 10, 15 years? I think it depends on how long it takes for each generation to get further and further away from books but I am pretty sure it will happen. I can see books being like LP's, rare items, collected by some diehards or memorbilia people looking to sell them at a profit to other collectors. But it's not just books that seem likely to disappear. Daily newspapers are in serious jeopardy right now. I grew up as a New York Times reader because my mother read it. And I do still see some people reading papers in subways, buses, airports and airplances. But I see many more who are not. I see a lot of people staring at the TV monitors in airport waiting areas listening to the constant drivel of talking heads with too much time on their hands to fill. I also see more and more people wearing earphones/headphones and listening to who knows what, mostly music I assume. But it could be podcasts of news or of business related things or just plain entertainment. So I guess what I'm saying is that at some point things we're familiar with will be extinct and I guess it's just an evolutionary thing. But I just wonder if 50 years down the road there won't be a return to the past and a resurgence of the printed book, not just as a novelty, but as something that provides pleasure, not just in what is written, but in the actual holding of the book and looking at them on a bookshelf. It's a warm feeling that I get when I look at my books and I fear that the totally digital age is a much colder one and if I'm right then that's a sad thing.

Tony Lopinto of Eqinox Partners must've been thinking somewhat similar thoughts this week as he wrote this in his blog: "I miss the Cronkite evening news, uncluttered with headlines telegraphing across the bottom and highlight balloons popping-up here and there--not to mention the political bias, which varies depending on which station you are watching. Dissemination of the news, including on the business front, has deteriorated into sound bites, screaming journalists, twitters, Facebook postings, and now, the venerable Wall Street Journal has a sports page. I guess that, now that the Bankers are rolling in big bonuses again, they can focus on yesterday’s golf match."

On Thursday I drive to Hedgesville, WV for a reunion of eight guys that grew up in Forest Hills, NY. Some of us have not seen each other for a really, really long time. Why Hedgesville you ask? Well it met a number of criteria that the survey that were taken by reunion organizer, Mike Goldfischer took. I am really looking forward to catching up with these guys and wearing our reunion golf shirts to the country fair near the place we'll be staying at. Anyway, I'm sure I'll have something to tell you about.


Photo: Franz West's The Ego and the Id at the south entrance to Central Park

on the road....
austin & waco, tx
san diego, san francisco, oakland, sacramento, ca
cleveland, oh and chicago, il
atlanta, ga

Virtually each week I run into someone who tells me they miss this column. That's very sweet but it makes me realize that there may be others who don't know that i've continued to self-publish. So, if you know someone who you think might enjoy this or that used to get it please forward them this which has the infoTo subscribe to this column please go to this link and type your email address in the field provided (http://stevefelix.blogspot.com). Thanks.




These are my personal views and not that of my employer.

on the road

Well, my drive from Montreal to Chicago last weekend was absent any tornadoes (like the one in Kearney, NE last summer) but the torrential downpour west of Toronto was absolutely amazing. I almost pulled over under an underpass but decided to just put my flashers on, slow down and turn the wipers up to ludicrous speed. Isn't Mother Nature amazing. And, before leaving the subject of Toronto (or TO to locals) it took me two hours to drive about 10 miles. Yes it was Friday at 5pm but tell me this: why, after sitting in bumper to bumper traffic, with no accident (causing rubber-necking) or toll in the way, does traffic all of a sudden open up and start moving?

Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator for the Financial Times is a brilliant writer. I say this because he is great at taking complex subjects and synthesizing them into relatively short, understandable yet though provoking paragraphs. Witness this one from this week:

"If the exit into vigorous recovery seems still so uncertain, has the world at least been learning the right lessons for future management of the world economy? I believe not. The financial sector that is emerging from the crisis is even more riddled with moral hazard than the one that went into it. Its fundamental weaknesses are not yet redressed. Questions also remain about the working of the dollar-based international monetary system, the right targets for monetary policy, the management of global capital flows, the vulnerability of emerging economies, demonstrated in central and eastern Europe, and, not least, the financial fragility demonstrated so often and so painfully over the past three decades. However difficult the recovery may be, we must not ignore these questions."

What strikes me most is his comment about us not learning from previous mistakes and, to add my own two cents, it's amazing how quickly we seem to have moved on to other 'news', especially in this country where more and more people are losing jobs, homes and self-esteem. Things are not good yet some Wall Street houses, reportedly, are back to business as usual after taking (and paying back) massive loans from the U.S. Government. I guess it's the difference between the top-down and bottom-up approach to saving a society. The government felt it needed to make sure the banking industry survive (btw, when did investment banking and just plain banking get lumped together?) when I think it's at least equally and maybe more important to help our citizens from the bottom-up. I don't get the sense that that is really going on and I think that regardless of whether the media reports it or not we as a people of the U.S. are suffering. Sure, you can say that we deserve what we've brought on-easy money, tapping into home equity (that's now disappeared for many) and yes, some more discipline would have been smart. But if large corporations, some of which have not been able to run their company properly or profitably for years, deserve help, then so do all Americans.

Tim Riggins, one of the lead characters in the TV show "Friday Night Lights" regularly refers to "Let's make some memories." Now you might think that he only uses this line when he's talking with a "Rally Girl" (cheerleaders assigned to an individual football player to attend to his every need...including homework). But it's more than that and it's got me thinking: isnt' that what life is all about? Making Memories? It's sort of like the marketing book "The Experience Economy." People buy souvenirs to remember good experiences. Some of us probably do the same...whether it be buying a souvenir or taking photos to remember the good times. But what about those experiences where you didn't have a camera: no one did and you want to remember. And all we have is our memory. For me those memories include some of the concerts I've attended over the years (like going to the Fillmore East at the last minute and buying tickets (yes, right at the box office and just before the show) to see 'The Voices of East Harlem', "Fleetwood Mac", the original "King Crimson" and yes, finally, "Joe Cocker and the Grease Band." I had started to document these things and other memories and observations about myself and my growing up in my at some point to be published autobiography, "Driving With Your Knees." But I'm not going to waste any more time in noting those things that I remember now and want to remember and pass along to the next generation, just for historical purposes. We tend to forget things as we grow older and one never knows, given the fragile nature of life, when we simply won't be able to do those things we planned to do....somewhere down the line.

My apologies for last week's column in which (pointed out by two people) the editing in the second section was sloppy.



On the Road
Austin
Dallas
Waco
Cleveland
California
Oregon
Hedgesville, WV: For a reunion of some guys I grew up in Forest Hills, NY and who haven't been together in a long, long time. Talk about memories!


Photo: Sean Felix







These are my personal views and not that of my employer.

On the Road

We are in times of reinventing ourselves and discovering transferable skills. Things are not what they used to be in so many ways and especially service companies in our industry are looking high and low for some way to generate revenue. Some have chosen to open 'workout' shops but I'm not so sure there are that many real real estate workouts in the market yet. More of the 'workouts' involve institutional investors (LP's-Limited Partners) and their GP's (General Partners) whose romance that flourished and grew over the past say 10 years or so has lost it's bloom. The realization that in some cases values need to be written down to Zero (yes with a capital Z) is not easy to stomach but what it is it is and these are not times to be fooling oneself. Discovery of clauses in documents is another wake-up call for investors in commingled funds as during the hey-day, when investors were asked to say 'yes' or 'no' to commiting huge somes of money in the blink of an eye, a lot was overlooked or just deemed 'this will never happen.' But happen it has and as we all know about contracts, from our cable contract to our cell phone contracts, there are penalties for early termination (and other things) and the learning is not easy.

I believe that one of the most important words in the english langue is 'Patience' (with a capital P) and we're going through economic and business times that require a lot of it. Patience is also important in all aspects of our lives and, at least from what i've found, lack of patience not only causes us to make wrong decisions but also don't give things a chance (what about "Give Peace A Chance?) to evolve. As we enter the second (and last) half of 2009 it appears that those who proclaimed that we should just write-off 2009 (way back in 4Q08) may be right. but the write-offs that are involved in making things right again are what have a lot of CIO's awake at night. intuitively we know that things will improve, where the patience comes in is that we don't know just when and it's taking longer than we would like and i'm not so sure that the U.S. government, for all it's good intentions, is keeping it's eye on our problems but is distracted by too many external world problems (how about us focusing our time and resources on our own country for a chance and let the rest of the world fend for itself while we solve some of our huge internal problems). But even in times like these, and perhaps especially in times like these, those entrepreneurs who have the guts to start new things may find success, some in distressed opportunities. Other companies, large and not so large that are looking at the changing landscape and changing with it will also find success albeit in different ways than they originally thought. Clearly, this period that we are living in is a significant era (aren't they all?) and the media doesn't let us forget that 'news' is just that: something new to be pounded on and reported on in an over-the-top way but only for a very short time....until the next new thing happens. The media exhibits no patience and for my money they don't exhibit much character or integrity anymore. But just because they've fallen into an abyss doesn't mean that we have to follow them. We need to think for ourselves and not follow, we need to be leaders and good examples and we need to be patient for there is some peace of mind coming down the road and we don't want to miss it when it pulls up along side us.

one of these weeks i'm going to write a whole column on snipets of conversations i hear while people are on their mobile phones and i happen to be walking by. i don't consider it evesdropping as that connotes standing at a door with a glass to your ear and covertly listening in to a conversation. it still continues to amaze me at how unaware people are about what's going on around them or who might be standing nearby (does anyone really know?) when they're talking loudly on their mobile phones. first of all, perhaps people don't realize how powerfully sensitive the microphone in these phones are and you can, unless there's a huge amount of background noise, speak in fairly quiet tones and still be heard perfectly. so soon i'm going to start noting those little phrases i hear (you know what i mean as you experience the same thing) and just jot them down and write them hear. i think it'll be amusing but also enlightening as one day i'm expecting to hear someone talking about me to someone else or even better get some hot tip about a horse running in the sixth race at saratoga.

restaurant of the week: famous dave's bbq, madison, wisconsin (there are a few other locations as well). old photos, memoribilia hanging all over and, from what my colleauges told me, pretty excellent bbq. btw, here's a trivia question (i found the answer above the urinal at dave's): at the 1911 indianapolis 500, what was the average speed of the winner? multiple choice (courtesy of the series 7 and 63 exams that i recently passed). (a) 75mph, (b) 82mph, (c) 113 mph, (d) none of the above.

i had breakfast this week with an industry friend that i originally me through this column and while i feel like i've met a number of you through this medium (as many of you have told me you feel about me) there are only a small group who i've had a chance to have substantive chats with in person and/or continuing dialogue. but this to me is what has made this column so special. the chance to 'meet' people who may react or respond to something i've written and have taken the time to reach out to me. i feel very fortunate to be able to connect with you each week and look forward to hearing from you from time to time.


Upcoming travels (dates being coordinated as we speak):
Texas
California
Oregon
Missouri
Illinois
Boston
Atlanta




these are my personal views and not that of my employer.