We hope they're good at Math...

Parochial School PE and Mardi Gras in the 80s

Among my worst memories growing up, PE (physical education) at Christ the King parochial school features prominently. I am naturally clumsy with poor eye-hand coordination (and this is not in an endearing Bella Swan of Twilight kind of way). PE in the 1980s featured lots of team sports involving throwing, catching and dodging balls as well as the (now) incomprehensible practice of letting the kids pick the teams. Needless to say the team captains were always the most popular and athletic boys and girls. I remember listening to them go down the names of my classmates hoping to avoid the impossible--the humiliation of being picked last or (occasionally) second to last. By fifth grade, I discovered an escape hatch from the disapproving screams of "Way to Go Mason!" as they rolled the ball towards me in kickball...and I tripped over it, or my prayers went unanswered and the baseball came my way in the outfield. I volunteered to be the teacher's grading assistant. I couldn't believe my luck. As my class-mates tromped off to the hated PE, I stayed in the cloistered quiet of the class-room, in the all-powerful role of grader.

By high school, I attended a different school and PE had expanded to include something I was actually good at that required little grace or eye-hand coordination--running. My torment took another form--Mardi Gras--an annual play, dance and float competition among the four years of Girls High School. If you had no discernible dramatic talents and didn't happen to be pretty or popular enough to be elected float queen, you automatically got shuffled into one of the three class dances. Did I mention these dances involved costumes, usually not very flattering ones? With the exception of my Junior Year (where I escaped by going Abroad) I danced as a bat to Michael Jackson's "Thriller," a chipmunk to Steppenwolf's "Magic Carpet Ride" and an "Egyptian" (I think this was to the Bangle's "Walk like an Egyptian"). Inevitably the dance captain was some bossy little girl who had been taking ballet or tap since she was two, who did not appreciate my poor execution of her steps and inability to stay on beat, thus interfering with her moment to shine.

You would think this experience would have made me sympathetic to my own children's potential to have inherited this lack of athletic ability. My husband requests that I point out that this defect does not come his side of the gene pool and that he was a very respectable athlete in his day. Nevertheless, I have decided that part of the children's education in Spain should involve their participation in a locally popular extra-curricular activity.

The Royal Conservatory

As a resourceful American woman with access to the Internet, and ideas about her daughter learning grace, deportment and discipline. I found about something called the Conservatory. Note: my daughter also took karate for many years. This was in my "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" phase when I decided "I will have a girl with skin as fair as snow, hair like spun gold, who can kick butt" (alas no Asian ancestry since Gatins' forebear Rene Madec left Quimper as a cabin boy with the French East India Company in the 18th century, had many adventures, became a Nabob and eventually married a descendant of Genghis Khan). "This girl-child will excel at school, dance like an angel and, if necessary, deliver blows like a killer." My daughter actually has rhythm and grace. She passed the auditions and now we're sucking off the teat of socialism as she learns classical ballet, Spanish dance and music theory for 6 hours a week (the hours go up after the first year), at the ridiculous cost of 120 euros a year--roughly one months's tuition, plus the cost of the recital costume in the US. One thing that is nice about state sponsorhip of the arts is that while ballet is a cliche of the aspirant middle and upper-middle class in the US, my daughter's companions at Spanish conservatory come from all walks of life. This program turns professional after 4 years and, for many of these children, it's their ticket to a career as a dancer.

Fundacion Real Madrid Futbol

Meanwhile, what could be more Spanish or even more international than "futbol" (soccer for you Americans). Nothing less than a Real Madrid youth team (haven't noticed that any girls play in the league, but didn't ask either) in a working class suburb would do for my boys' "education." My boys are average height and, while they have respectable gross motor skills, they are up against boys who started playing a lot earlier than they did. The US soccer team for their age was run by a church-league and usually coached by a parent or grand-parent, with one hour-long practice and one game a week, played at a local park or elementary school. On the other hand, the pre-benjamin (7 and under) futbol team for Fundacion Real Madrid has one and a half hour practices twice a week, professional coaches and a ginormous brand-new 10-field stadium near Barajas airport. Oh, and did I mention that they don't cancel games for weather here. Madrid is at 800 meters altitude can get quite cold and wet in the winter. I, wrongly, assumed they could wear their team sweatpants and jacket during the game, but instead they had to strip down to thin nylon shirts and shorts to play in sleet. Recently, their team got beat 8-2 by a bunch of 5 and 6 year-old boys from another Madrid barrio where they take futbol even more seriously.

One of my boys actually likes the game, has a sense of defense and is competitive. The other one couldn't care less. He's the kind that does flips on the goal during practice or looks for four leaf clover while the action passes him by. Both boys get shouted at and made fun of by their more advanced Spanish team-mates. The only saving grace is that they get some popularity points for being exotic twin, Americans. One day at practice, when the less-motivated twin wasn't paying attention and let the goal in, a bulky team-mate kicked his butt. When the little one showed some backbone, ran after the bully and kicked him in the tail-bone, my husband was so proud. The kids all laughed. This was the sort of "education" I was hoping for when I signed them up.

Mathletics

This brings me to my children's latest passion--Mathletics. We discovered this when the boys' school sent home a note saying that all the children would be participating in something called World Maths Day on March 2nd, and gave us their logon and password so they could practice at home. Mathletics educational software, by Australian company 3P Learning, does a very clever job of promoting themselves and successfully bridging the gap between the free, often-school-sponsored competition, World Math Day, and their subscription, for-pay product.

Now for a note of reassurance. The Fleury children are completely normal kids, which is to say that they would rather be watching cartoons and playing video games than doing anything remotely education-related in their free time. In fact it takes a kick in the butt to make sure they do their homework in their free time. We have tried other things to "trick" our children into thinking math was a game, but it never works--they always realize that math is work.

The genius of World Math Day is it flies in the face of current educational trends--don't stress the child out, don't give them time trials, teach them that "we are all winners"--and takes a page out of the book of Game Theory (how can I convince people to play hours of an online or video game, not the Math and Econ Nobel prize-winning kind). I haven't read this, but my husband, who has spent many an hour playing video games, says that the successful games involve competition, time-trials, levels, and "rewards." In World Math Day and Mathletics the children compete in 1-minute speed challenges to answer the greatest number of math questions (addition, subtraction, multipication and division) against children across the world. World Math Day truly was international--in any random game, depending on world time zones my children might be competing against "Jill" from Great Britain, "Mohammed" from Qatar and "Jesus" from Guatemala. Predictably, given the subscription cost, the players in the for-pay game seem to come mostly from Great Britain, the US, Canada and Australia. The child's first name, last initial, country flag, country and school name (if the school participates) will show up when they compete in both games. The children can see how they measure up real-time as a horizontal bar graph tracks the number of questions answered correctly by each child. In Mathletics, the children use the points to go shopping for virtual crap on the Mathletics site. One of my sons learned a lesson about spending his "money" when he lost 200 hard-earned points, accidentally purchasing a hair upgrade for his avatar, he thought he was just trying out. It's amazing how feverishly hard my children are working to purchase things that don't even exist! This business model is genius.

The children's new hero, is World Maths Day Champion Kaya G, a scrawny 11-year old from Australia. One child is an outright admirer and two of them are haterz, who complain that Kaya G was allowed to compete again 2010 and win again, thinking he should have been forced to give other people a turn and share the glory. They watch his video, note that he can go faster because he has a special numeric keypad, and that his avatar "has the most expensive background" on Mathletics.

The interesting lesson in this game is that 1) math is truly an international language and 2) no matter how good you think you are, there is some kid half-way around the world waiting to kick your butt. For some reason, this makes me think of the French News Parody show with puppets, "Les Guignols de L'info". They used to have this parody of a multinational company called "La World Company" with a Sylvester Stallone/Rambo type executive who used to always spout the pompous truism "Le Monde est Mondial": The World is Worldwide. Get used to it baby.

TRAPPED

Someone come save me...

So this morning the lights went out. How did I first notice? The lights on my router were off! I mean completely off! I immediately knew it was no good.

I also grew to realize how dependent on electricity my whole life has become. See, I barely leave the house. Nathalie, she likes it outside. Me too, however, I can go on for 3 days without leaving the house.

I panicked a little when I realized all my computers where down. Yes even my PS3s. Argh! What to do? I decide to go make some coffee only to find that it too, of course is out of commission as it works purely from the main source. I realize I can't use gas because I don't have gas.

I feel a big empty void inside... I can't use my laptop as I don't have the music I need on it and anyway, the fucking Internet is down!

I take a shower. At least that works for now with the reserve of hot water that electricity has already heated... I start thinking about the fact that our lives have completely evolved since this great invention. I realize I may have to step outside as there is nothing else to do but walk the dog.

I decide it is the right thing to do. I can visit a second degree aunt that works around the corner. Anyway i need to buy a new Iberico ham. The cinco jotas gets me out of the house. I call joy, the live-in helper we have and she doesn't respond, she must work off electricity as well.

So I step outside. We live on the 6th. As I call the elevator I realize, horror, the it too works off of main. I stare down the dark shaft. It looks like a matrix movie shot. I give up.

I come back home. I remember
my iPod. God bless the iPod. I can't wait for the Jesus tablet. I type this blog entry on the iPhone.

FT: time to ban naked CDS

In all the studying I have done of the financial crisis, one instrument stood out as nefarious: the naked CDS. I have long been convinced that they need to be banned.

Last week Bernanke said they would investigate their use in the Greek crisis. This morning Munchau, pens an article calling for their outlawing.

I generally do not like to propose bans. But I cannot understand why we are still allowing the trade in credit default swaps without ownership of the underlying securities. Especially in the eurozone, currently subject to a series of speculative attacks, a generalised ban on so-called naked CDSs should be a no-brainer.

Naked CDSs are the instrument of choice for those who take large bets against European governments, most recently in Greece. Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, said last week that the Fed was investigating “a number of questions relating to Goldman Sachs and other companies in their derivatives arrangements with Greece”. Using CDSs to destabilise a government was “counter-productive”, he said. Unfortunately, it is legal.

Greece CDS is quoted at 350 bips this morning and accusing fingers are pointing to hedge funds. So it seems Paulson and GS went one CDS too far by shorting government debt and are now attracting the political ire of regulators.

I find the article doesn't go far enough in analysis and just skims the reasons why they are nefarious. The biggest one being that when a CDS triggers they are a liquidity drain. You have to come up with a cash settlement for large sums of money. I remain convinced that the panic of aug 2007 can be directly linked to a liquidity drain triggered by naked CDS on subprime. There was a 4:1 naked to non-naked ratio...

Of note, Goldman Sachs (GS) and many others were in the business of selling the short side of these securities to speculators (and themselves) and marketing the long side to investors with AAA ratings. "Abacus", for example, was built from naked CDS. When subprime blew up those CDS blew up and with a lever of 4:1. AIG was at the end of the line, meaning the government... Ouch... GS will be investigated in conjunction with AIG and these securities is my guess.

In the meantime, I feel rather good about myself. It just makes me feel good to know I was on the right track in analyzing the mess. Go me.

The Greek tragedy

In many ways the greek tragedy is a play about modern monetarism theory or MMT and its relation to politics.

For those that don't have the time or inclination to follow the details, it appears the pied piper has finally caught up with the hellenians.

A debt crisis threatens the ability of Greece to raise cash and sell its EU bonds. Some cry foul, calling it mounted attacks by hedge-funds, other see a proverbial justice in having socialist countries pay for their profligal sins. Deficits don't matter?

So when the rubber meets the road, the EU politically backs the debt of its participants fearing a debt contagion to the rest of the member countries. But in practice no nation wants to fund the greek bill. Germany knows re-unification and the prospect of paying through the nose for socialists in the south that are not even grateful is un-appealing. In holland they have passed a bill that they would provide no help.

And here the reality of the Euro hits home. It is a monetary authority without the fiscal authority. The EU is no US. Political authorities are still local and can be at odds with the unified monetary system. There is no central treasury. Someone wrote, you can have any 2 amongst these 3: democracy, monetary union, sovereignty. Europe wants all 3. Either regional sovereignty gives or the EMU gives. That's an interesting one and a good test of democracy (assuming that one stays :).

The FT this morning has a great article calling for a "leave of absence" from the EU for greece. The technicality says they would re-enter with a devalued exchange. This is akin to a monetary policy effect by printing money. How easy it is to do it within the US.

Consider California, it is waaay bigger than greece and it too is in bad financial shape. A fiscal crisis looms, can CA sell new bonds? Does anyone care? I haven't seen the muni market implode yet.... the implied assumption is that the federal government would fly to the rescue of the states and they would get their bailout monies just like the rest of them.

Do you hear Texas threatening to secede because they are tired of paying for those pretty boys socialists over there on the west coast? The political landscape is very different and the FED has been doing massive printings of money to rescue its economy and the world financial system. Ironically, the dollar is rallying, the US assets being a refuge value when the shit hits the fan. Go figure.

On that note, I was told to trade the EUR/DOL in the 1.35-1.55 range by a trusted advisor. I was holding at 1.53 and rode it to 1.43 where I sold some and it is now at 1.36... time to buy back?

Mad About "Mad Men"

My new television show passion is Mad Men—am about ½ way through Season 3. Although, the pacing has its occasional doldrums, watching this show is a guilty pleasure. Part of the show’s entertainment is the situational irony highlighting all the differences between “then” (late 50s early 60s) and “now.”

Then

Parents are always telling their children to “Go watch television.”

Children attend a birthday and one boy acts unruly. It’s not just his parent who disciplines him. It’s a friend of his parents who gives him a slap.

8-year old Sally Draper puts a plastic dry cleaning bag over her mouth and breathes it in. Her mother gets upset at her for messing up the dry cleaning.

The Draper family goes on a picnic and leaves all their trash on the grass without thinking twice.

Grampa Gene lets his 8-year old daughter drive his Lincoln town car.

Betty Draper brings her baby home in her arms, seated in the passenger seat of the car.

You could say the word stewardess. They were young, cute, flirty and happy to serve.

Roger Sterling worries about an ulcer and “does everything the doctors told him” drinking a daily glass of cream…and winds up getting a heart attack.

The cocktail bar is a central fixture in the Sterling Cooper office. Everybody drinks and chain smokes.

Pre-civil rights: with one unusual exception all the women at the office are secretaries. Plenty of sexually suggestive banter at the office, if any of the women are offended, their job security depends on not showing it. Women aren’t the only outsiders: “Negroes,” “Homos” and “Let’s go talk to some Retail Jews.”

People really dressed up when they went to work or out of the house.

The Cold War: Cuban Missile Crisis and fear that the Russians “Will drop the bomb any day.”


The characters have interesting discussions and interactions with the social issues of their time—integration, the arms race, civil rights, the Surgeon General’s warning about cigarette smoking. It might have been a world filled with danger and uncertainty, but there was also a sense of optimism and excitement about the “Future.” Traveling on airplanes was exotic and exciting, television is the medium of the future, Kennedy has just been elected, Bob Dylan is hot, Space is the new frontier!

Like many of the children of the children of the 60s, I resent that all the fun, excitement and sense of expectation regarding the future disappeared long before I could experience it. We got the aftermath of the Vietnam War and Watergate, followed by the oil shock, economic stagflation, the Iranian hostage crisis, US manufacturing decline and the flower children became yuppies. Instead of optimistically engaging the world around us, we have been taught to stand at a cynical arm's length.

The fictional characters in Mad Men can say and do things that we, in 2010, publicly cannot. While the progressive legislation of the 60s paved the way for a (relatively) more open and inclusive society, the downside is that interesting public dialogue in America today is practically non-existent. You get two ends of the spectrum: the people who are happy not to think, and thus grateful for whatever one-size-fits-all ideology relieves them of this burden, while bestowing on them a corresponding sense of identity and purpose aka imposing their ideology on everybody else or--the equally annoying wishy washy contingent who are so terrorized by what other people think of them--that the prospect of saying anything at all is quite terrifying to them. Such a definitive utterance might be construed as a “value judgment” and, thus expose them as the frauds to post-modernism that they really are.

Since I’m particularly immune to drama with gratuitous Social Message ("Dislike my work at your own risk, I'll accuse you of being unsympathetic to the issues I write about!"), I wouldn’t enjoy Mad Men if it didn’t have some great characters and a compelling plot.

The More Interesting Characters

“Don Draper”
At first couldn’t stand him, but have grown to appreciate the good looking, strong-but-silent type ad exec with a painful past—information about which they dribble out to us as the show progresses. They’ve even managed to convince me that the frequent pans on his blank stare reveal some sort of reflective thought process going on in there. However, the one thing that bothers me the most about him though is the way he constantly cheats on his wife. None of these extra-marital relationships are particularly meaningful; he’s just a serial philanderer. Maybe it’s the female perspective here, I wouldn’t have a problem with this attitude or lifestyle if he were single or he had some arrangement by which his wife were ok with this: it’s the dishonesty that bothers me. Yes, his wife is rather neurotic, but she loves him. Ironically she looks better than almost every single woman he cheats on her with.

Possible writers’ notes on Don Draper’s “sex addiction”

1) This is what most men are genetically programmed to have, but unless they are living in one of your more progressive communes, possessed of extraordinary good looks, financial and/or professional success and strong sense of moral relativity aka Tiger Woods, are rarely able to act on this in a very satisfactory manner.

2) Don Draper, growing up as the abandoned son of a whore, who died upon his birth and left him to be raised by his no-good, alcoholic father who beat and demoralized him and his long-suffering “step” mother, with no love or acceptance from either “parent” or any figure in his life for that matter, lacks a sense of identity and looks for acceptance/affirmation of his masculinity in a stream of meaningless sexual relationships

Betty Draper
Cold, beautiful, ice-princess, Grace Kelly look-a-alike. While I feel somewhat sorry for her, Betty gets on my nerves. Hard not to realize how privileged her situation is when you have the more sympathetic Carla, the black housekeeper, doing most the work to raise Betty’s kids and not complaining about her life…Betty’s constant sulking does not engender much sympathy, wish she would get off the “dime” and actually do something about her unhappiness. Show strays into familiar “Madame Bovary” “Anna Karenina” territory where the only proactive thing, chance at happiness Betty seems to be able to imagine is having an affair, possibly with an older man who will act as a father substitute.

Peggy Olson
Moves out of the secretarial pool to become Sterling Cooper’s first female copywriter “since the war.” Her ambition combines spunk and seeming guilelessness. She might be the only “nice” character if you could forget that she abandoned her infant son…I do have to say Peggy’s mixture of innocence/goodness, her empathy for other people and mostly non-judgmental attitude combined with her desire to go a little wild (and mishaps along the way) make her the most interesting character after Don.

Joan Holloway/Harris
Very curvy office manager who dresses to kill. She initially appears bitchy but then becomes more sympathetic as the show progresses. Her sweetly poisonous lines as she offers advice/tries to undermine the girls are great. "Work hard and well you really won't even have to work will you? You'll be married and living in the suburbs" "He's a doctor, and he's good looking!" Mad Men producers thank you for casting Christina Hendricks in this role and showing that you can be pale, have curves (real curves, not the model look with the boys' backside and the blow-up pneumatic chest) and still be hot.

Pete Campbell
The scheming account exec. who will stop at nothing to get ahead. He occasionally is revealed to be vulnerable and does the occasional good deed, which renders him a little more multi-dimensional. Also sleeps around, no doubt because his father didn’t love and approve of him either.

Burt Cooper
Relatively minor character but entertaining none the less. The exec who no longer does any real work, but plays the “older sage” role. Has an affinity for Eastern philosophy and modern art. Relatively subdued compared to everybody else in the office--his risqué Japanese print of the Octopus and Geisha is hilarious.

Roger Sterling
In his mid-fifties realizes he hasn’t loved his wife for years and fulfills his dream to marry attractive 20-year old secretary. Any woman will do. He is in “in love.” Ironic exchange where Roger tells Don: “I realize that people are envious of me because of how happy I am” to which Don replies: “People don’t think you’re happy; they think you’re foolish.”

An Education

Caveat: My children are surfing the Internet playing with virtual fish as I write this.

Just finished reading Nick Hornby’s screenplay for “An Education”. As an aspiring playwright, I especially enjoyed the introductory section where Hornby tells the story of making this movie based on Lynn Barber’s autobiographical essay about her affair with a shady older man at the beginning of the 1960s.

Hornby points out the challenge in rewriting a memoir where a woman in her sixties writes about her sixteen year-old self. The point of a memoir is to be as smart as possible about one’s younger self. Meanwhile, “in a screenplay, you have to deny the character that insight otherwise there’s no drama, just a character understanding herself and avoiding mistakes.”

This made me think about episodes in my life that contributed to my “Education,” and the distance between the woman I am today and the naïve girl I was when I graduated from college. As I raise my own children, I wonder how to impart some of this acquired knowledge to them, so they can avoid the painful mistakes I made.

Children Interrupt: “Mommy can I make my bed and fold my pajamas for the rest of the year so I can earn $29 to buy some virtual fish and pearls?

Me: “No, but what you can do is think about ways to get a bunch of children around the world to ask their parents for money to buy things that don’t even exist. That’s a smart person who came up with that idea.”

Situation upon graduating from college
Graduated Phi Beta Kappa, Magna Cum Laude from Wellesley with honors degree in English literature.

Applicability and use of this degree in finding real world employment (in my particular case): None.

Sales and Trading job in Global Derivatives:
Failed this recruiting interview at a major international bank based on not being able to tell the department head a convincing story about how “street smart” I was. Not knowing what a derivative was probably didn’t help either, especially after lying about how “motivated I was” to get the job/find gainful employment/not go back home and live with my parents. Apparently I wasn’t the only person who didn’t know what a derivative was…

Thereafter, became extremely preoccupied with how to remedy the street smart situation, or more practically, convince other people I had remedied it.

Fundraising consultant/geisha:
Had to rely on family connections to get this job…was fired after 3 months for, among other failings: “talking while stuffing envelopes” and “forgetting the Xerox color-coding scheme for hand-outs.” The ambiance was straight out of the 1960s Mad Men secretarial pool, staffed by young girls from good families biding their time before marriage and housewives bored with the Junior League. Legendary was the Milf who dressed to emphasize her legs and décolletage as she leaned towards male chief executives at the moment of the crucial ask, imploring them to “think of the children.”

Most useful piece of information learned there—“always send hand-written envelopes with real stamps, girls, when you want to look classy and have strangers read your mail.” Whilst your vulgar (or more honest) operator might actually sleep with the client, a society lady, with well-honed skills, plays on your narcissism, vanity and social ambitions to clean you out. Hopefully it’s for a good cause. Least useful piece of information learned there: listening to The Head talk about all the fun things she did with her friend, The Billionaire. “The very rich are very different.”

Even then, I knew: no they’re not. They just don’t give a shit. Lots of very poor people don’t give a shit either and are “very different” too. The middle class, however, are most definitely not “very different” because they’re typically obsessed with what people think of them and studying the mores of their superiors in hopes of moving up the social ladder.

Temp:
After disastrous fund-raising geisha experience, temped as actual replacement secretary for partners at (what was then) Big Six Accounting and Consulting. Was a big hit because I did not talk to my boyfriend on the phone, smack gum or put my feet on the desk. One Managing Partner of Tax was particularly impressed with me because I came up with the brilliant idea of sorting his mail. Also had to listen to him ask me if “my parents could spell” because my name had an “h” in it. Did not feel it was worth my time to explain that my maternal grandparents grew up in France or that other languages and cultures have other ways of spelling things.

What I learned: If I ever wanted to find out the real dirt on what is going on at a company or what certain people are like, I would definitely ask the secretaries.

Mutual Fund Report Writer:
First real job I got was as a writer for a financial company, editing the annual reports for their mutual funds. The department head who hired me was straight out of Mad Men/had been the head of creative for a major SF ad agency at an earlier point in his life. He hired me because I could write, read books, liked to discuss literature and because he had fond memories of dating Wellesley girls when he got his (never-to-be-used) degree at Harvard Law.

Memorable moment in job: telling billion dollar fund manager that Humpty Dumpty was perhaps not the best metaphor for the currently depressed stock that he expected to rebound because “All the King’s horses and all the King’s men never could put Humpty back together again.”

Grateful for: fun colleagues and wonderful second boss, former school teacher and published poet who showed me that women don't have to undermine each other in the workplace, and that you can be an effective boss without being a total hardass.

Realization: Unless you’re J.K Rowling, writing ability and familiarity with children’s stories are relatively low paying skills. On the other hand, managing OPM (other people’s money) is a great paying job, but only a fool would pay me to do that.

JBoss Years

1998: Possibility: Marc would probably have happily built JBoss at Sun Microsystems for a 40% increase in his Pre-Sales Engineer salary and conferral of “Distinguished Engineer” title. Reality: It was impossible to build JBoss at Sun at that time, even more so for a low-level employee with non-established credentials.

Marc meets founders of WebLogic at JavaOne. They ask him if Sun is still the same fucked up company it used to be. He interviews for job at WebLogic, but this goes nowhere because they are bought by BEA and their hiring is frozen.

Our discussion about Marc leaving his job to become an entrepreneur:

“You’re going to leave a secure job with health care and benefits to write free software? If you are going to put all those hours into something, why not something that will enhance our future and pay for the baby’s college education?”

Ultimately, it was quit his job or go to therapy and pay somebody else to listen to how much he hated his job.

Realization: You have to really suck to not be able to find an equivalent, non-fulfilling job a year later if things don’t work out. In that case, you’re no worse off than you were before, but at least you’ve gotten the “coulda, woulda, shoulda” thing out of your system.

1999: Marc leaves to work on JBoss and receives a 300% salary increase for non-JBoss related software consulting in that period. Comment from a friend and former colleague about his desire to work as a software developer: “You’re moving down the food chain.”


2000: “This is not just a bad business plan, this is a horrible business plan:” Doug Leone, Sequoia Capital.

2001: Marc’s first start-up attempting to commercialize JBoss fails. My husband and I, along with our child and dog, move in with my parents. Marc comments to our lawyer at the time: “We’re the original garage company.” Lawyer replies: No you’re not. You’re the original in-law’s garage company.”

I decide to help him until he gets his feet off the ground, but wind up staying because the momentum really picks up.

2002: Twins are born, home office gets small. We look for office space as part of Georgia Tech’s ATDC Incubator program. ATDC’s response: “JBoss is a consulting company. VC’s don’t invest in consulting companies’ ergo a VC will never invest in you, so you’re not a fit for us.” We get outside office space elsewhere.

2004: We’re still not sure we want them, but top VC firms, attracted by JBoss’s user community and growing business, compete to invest in us. No VC would touch us with a 10-foot pole in 2000 when we had an early stage product and a company that was bleeding overhead. If they had, they would have bought us for pennies on the dollar and we ultimately would have gotten very little equity.

We built JBoss on our own because we have no other option and because it’s “fun to blow shit up” and beat down a billion dollar industry, especially if you can figure out how to get people to pay you to do this and make money that is good for you, whilst laughably small for your fat, established competitors.

Lesson learned: “banks only lend to the rich. Them that has ‘gits.”


Education

David Mamet’s definition of street smart (referring to his Hollywood screenwriting work): “the moment when you’ve been seduced and abandoned sufficiently to tire of it.”

Am I more street smart now? Yes, this is because I’m older and I’ve actually been on the metaphorical “street”.

It occurs to me that the only people who are sufficiently sharp to be street smart without painful experiences are the motherfuckers who are always dreaming up ways to screw over other people first, so they’re super savvy at anticipating how other people plan to screw them.

When you are nobody, with no money and no connections and want to break into an established industry and do things differently you can expect to hear two things: “Who the fuck do you think you are. Piss off.”

Interested in being an entrepreneur? Re-read, the children’s story: The Little Red Hen. The only point anybody wants to “help” you is when it’s time to eat the bread.

Painful Learning Experience: The first partnership contract we signed at JBoss paid us on the basis of production sales of the partners’ software with clients of theirs who also ran JBoss. After several months without getting a check, we looked up their sales structure and realized this particular company didn’t sell production licenses; they sold development licenses.

Realization: Otherwise smart people are particularly prone to falling for low-level cons because it never occurs them that people would take advantage of them in such an obvious way. To this day, I still wonder what advantage these people thought they would obtain by pretending to pay us something as opposed to the ill-will they were going to generate when we figured out what they were up to. The irony: we weren’t even expecting money at that point, we were just were happy to be seen with them…

Growing up/getting more savvy: Being excluded from giving talks at JavaOne, realizing Sun had locked down all the conference space in San Francisco that week, realizing that it never occurred/was not feasible for them to lock down the bar across the street and holding our first alternative JBoss One conference at the Thirsty Bear. Handing out flyers for our conference at Moscone center and being treated like unwanted panhandlers/agitators by Sun’s Key 3 Media lackeys.

Realizing that a normal pass to get into JavaOne cost $1000, but press passes are free: Finding sympathetic editors and becoming the “boat people” of J2EE article publishing the three months before the conference—with multiple authors per article.

Possible advice to children? Per Neal Stephenson’s marine-raider and all-round badass Bobby Shaftoe in Cryptonomicon: “Display Adaptability.”

Ability to effectively transmit the benefits of my experiences to children without them actually experiencing any of this for themselves? Unresolved.

Advice My Mother Gave Me

Most useless advice (transmitted from her mother's memories of house parties in the French countryside in the post-war years): "When you stay at other people's houses make sure you scrub out the bathtub, sink and toilet after you have used them. Don't assume the servants are there to do this for you. They will be reporting any negligence in your personal hygiene back to Madame. Oh, and always tip the servants.

Advice I use most frequently: (my mother worked for many years as a chef and restaurant manager): Always angle your knuckles, on the hand that you are holding the food with, away from the knife when you're slicing. Always serve things that you can re-heat at the last minute when you have large numbers of guests.

Advice my mother gave me that I'm still trying to figure out: An object should either be beautiful or useful.

TF22: Refried Beans 2009

Sometimes I like to cook something with what is left in the fridge. And sometimes it is even yummy. This time I do it with 2009 music, music I have been listening continuously in a loop on my ipod but haven't mixed in yet. Hence "refried beans".

TF22- Refried beans 09 by marc fleury

I keep my ear close to the speaker for good music, or rather "music I like". I have a lot of time, so there is a lot of it. Not everything is brand spanking new in there, in fact some stuff in there is downright old, early 80's and such. But everything has caught my ear in one way. The melody, the pads, the drums, the mood, the pace, the bass, the vocals, the memories, whatever.

The resulting mood is ironically down-tempo (ironical because I don't particularly like down-tempo) it starts at a sluggish 100BPM and lazily climbs up to 120ish... and it is definitely melancholic, in the off-tones. It has hip-hop, house, electronic, techno, some rock (gasp!). Like I said, it plays like an ipod shuffle on a partied out sunday morning.

Tracklist:

1/ Find me in the World, DSL, Ed Banger.
Most excellent french hip-hop... this track actually has some pedigree in it, the manager of the head banger label, Pedro Winter, has been a stable fixture of the parisian electro night. I also think he was the manager of the Daft Punk for a long time. The lyrics are great, I like the way the french rapping sounds.

"Te faire ramasser par le samu social, c'a te rend bestial,
je te dis ca avec passion mais je me peterai pas une corde vocale,
je dis pas ca mais je rhyme que sur ma boite vocale".

"Being picked up by the homeless service turns you into a beast."
You just can't make up stuff like that, very french in its social angst about money and people.



2/ Footprints, Stratus.
I like the pad line at the end, the swirling melody and synth pad sound that seems to spiral out of control in slow mo. I like the continuous transform whaaa-whaaa sound. It is a good light track very chill and space in a way.

3/ Same Sun, Bazoo Bajoo, Prins Thomas Diskomiks
I really like what the nordic disco invasion guys are doing. These have been putting out killer track after killer track and they do it with style. They DJ'ing also superb. I recommend Todd Terje and Prins Thomas, they crack me up every time. A certain insouciance about it all and a dead-on ear. It apparently started as an teenage underground love affair with space-disco and turned into this most excellent style. Again a dubbed out, chill, slow and downtempo track. It has some heaviness, in the step drums, to it. Be patient with this track and it will grow on you. I like the break, the hypnotic voice and the drum re-uptake, the electronic finish.

4/ The Swamp waltz, Steve Moore remix, Arnaud Rebotini
Another Parisian artist. Arnaud Rebotini was unknown to me until I heard this track on a Joe Goddard Resident Advisor mix a couple of month ago. It was an instant ear catcher for me. The original is quite good. I also listened to all the other remixes of the swamp waltz and, well, I really find this one stands out. Steve moore has produced an inspired remix, check out his production on soundcloud, the guy has talent. I love everything about this track. The progression, the pad line (from the original) very spooky, the 808 clear bell, and the melody, the way it builds up, the messiness. This one is extremely slow, for a modern track, clocking at 112BMP, when it fact it is quite rich in texture. And it feels that way, it stands out in modern production. And here I thought clubs couldn't clock below 130bips due to the widespread chemical abuse? There is nothing laid back about the track, it in fact manages to be quite overwhelming...

5/ The bottle, C.O.D
Ok, I cheat here. For those that have listened to the Goddard RA podcast, the waltz is song number 4, and this is number 3, in other words I play them in reverse order he does. Pity is that I couldn't find the same exact original on itunes. Goddard must have the original vinyls....You can hear the limits of sound production in the 80's... The stuff still sounds good but the sound production quality is frankly sub-par in this particular cut. Whatever, the melody on this one is so good. One of those catchy urban tunes. It brinks back memories. I even drop the mix at "here is another one" like Goddard does :). I am such a copy-cat.

6/ Single girl, Knight Action.
Another song from another RA compilation. Resident advisor has been a steady source of tunes for me. I can't remember which one, just that instantly liked the first line of lyrics on first hearing and went and bought it. It is funny to think that this one was a big chicago club hit in 1984, possibly a floor filler of the day, today it sounds very down-tempo at 110 BPM. You can see on the wave form how that 80's production is essentially maxed out at least on the itunes version :) and the sound levels are off. I like the off-key melody and the key change, I also like the lyrics even with all the cheese. I also love this picture of the author Duanne Hamm.



7/ Torch, Margot, Extrawelt remix.
I must admit that the entry of the modern production sound with the woosh and waaaash is soothing to my ears after the harshness of the 80's production. It is a relief to go back to modern sound texture, it is fuller, calming. For me the processed voice does this track. I like this warped sound, very spacey. I like the fact that I can't understand a SINGLE word of what they are saying. You must understand that growing up in france, to us, ALL songs sounded like this "whaaa hahahaha", so maybe I like the throwback to a simpler time when I could focus on electronic sound and melody and not what they were saying... of course if you like country music for the lyrics and the stories they tell (like my in-laws from Georgia) then your experience was vastly different. I sort of feel sorry for "native americans", understanding the lyrics in songs must have been a distracting curse. he he.

8/ In and out of my life, Adeva, Pridz remix.
The original was a late 80's hit. I remember buying the album with adeva face on it and thinking the vocals were floating far above the record and begging to be sampled out of what was a mediocre surrounding and remixed. I close my mind's eye and ear, wait 20 years and voila! and a Pridz remix at that, no less!
I love the original singing by Adeva, just powerful diva delivery. The remix is inspired. The bassline is just what the doctor recommended for that sampling. A very classic line gets a princely modern treatment. Definitely more "big-room" than the rest of the mix.



9/ Spaghetti Circus, Still Going.
Still in the vocal house vein. I love the "deep south" soul sounding vocal in the beginning. I love the piano line over the guitar, very housey in a sense. Then the spacey guitar is quite good, I like that sound, the reverb treatment makes it landscapish. This is an all around barn burner. I dovetail back into in and out just for the mixing fun of it and the fact that I couldn't get Manila to stick on the Spaghetti stuff :).

10/ Manila, Seelenluft, Ewan Parson mix.
This is a CATCHY tune. Period. It is one of those songs where you hear it once and you think you have known this track for ever. I like the lyrics, "then my seat started rattling, sure that wasn't part of the show, so I started to dance, without wearing no seat belt, so I started to dance without wearing no life vest". The little bleepy melody. It also has an innocence in the sound, probably the voice of the kid. Whatever it is, I like it.
It also has an interesting property, it works and goes with everything in mix... few tunes show this chameleon ability (I call it musical chicken, everything tastes like it) I think it is something about the harmonics they adopt and how they decompose.

11/ Any Day Now, Scott Ferguson, ElectroVox remix.
I love the deep south soul vocal and feel in this house gem. It is otherwise a down-tempo house track but it has this soul vibe. I am also quite happy with how this mixes with manila. I stretch the vocals to the max. I only use the first part because that is the part I like. The second one frankly sucks balls. Never seen a track so asymetric. A for the first part, F for the second. Go figure.

12/ 7 nites, 7 days, Jori Hulkonnen, Muzique Tropique's Love the Bass Remix
Jori Hulkonnen is a finnish genius. Period. Ever since he published "when we was attached" (was it 8 years ago already) on F communication, Garnier's french electro label, I have been a follower of his production. I think him a complete musical genius. His ALBUMS are totally worth it btw. On this track, I love the deep south voice, this is not the first time he uses the soul voice, and it totally works for me. As I continue my love affair with Jori H...

13/ Cereal Killaz, 3773, A23P's distension mix
Speaking of geniuses... I have gotten to know Al Nesby a.k.a A23P a bit through facebook and a common friend. This particular track, a remix of his, is a gem. I am not sure he himself realizes it. It hits all the right notes for me on drums, sound production, the originality of the result and the hard driving pattern. In find the drum pattern after the break to be epic. Very driven. IN fact I like it so much that I kind of extend it here from the skimpy minute Al gives us to about 3 minutes. For some reason the track made me think of a film score for a matrix style sci-fi movie, a chase scene to be precise... after thinking about it I think it is one of the first scenes in the club where trinity talks to neo for the first time... this is unreleased material directly from Al. Just superior electronic music.

14/ Found a place, Tony Lionni.
Finally some techno. Of course the vocals work here and are the only ones I could really super-impose on the sonic chaos that al summons up for us. You will notice that I keep it to the bare minimum. This track is a great techno sounding minimal inspired production. It appears on a Berghain club compilation (the mythical hard minimal techno Berlin club). Vocals, piano, cool sound production. The extent of the loop must be 2 bars, but who cares when you are blown out of your mind?

15/ One moment, Cari Lekebusch.
So let's take the same formula and repeat. Take a loop (the vocals in this case) a nasty high-hat drums pattern, a simple base, sprinkle a few pad notes here and there, tweak the hell out of the sound and VOILA another mind-blowing killer techno track. The last two tracks are about as close as I get to minimal, more minimal and I fall asleep :) they sound full. It does wash, rinse and clears your mind doesn't it?

16/ Obsession for the disco freaks, Robotnick, Rory phillips.
I love Robotnick. Robotnick is an italian old-timer. He is a superb electro producer and DJ. To see him DJ is a trip. He must be 50, smokes like a chimney, dances to his own dope, and drops killer tune after killer tune. All with an edgy and underground vibe. Speaking of tune this one is a beauty. In 3 solid parts, "obsession" sports an alien sound in the middle. The first time I listened to this I wondered how the hell he made that transition... just superb sound and a great melody. Excellent electro track.



17/ Dead Souls, Mlle Caro and Franck Garcia, Long distance remix.
Another parisian track. This one is a marathon WMC remix of a track, coming in at 11 minutes long. It takes for ever to build so I just key in on the melody and vocals. I immediately liked the french sounding voice "what a greeeaaat live, melanchoooly is my wife" of mademoiselle caroline garcia, just so cool. Then the second part with the spacey guitar has a very hypnotic quality to it. Maybe it is the 10 minutes of bleep bleep that does it. However, while remixing this I went online and check them out and then...

18/ Dead Souls, Mlle Caro and Franck Garcia. Original mix.
I found this video of them singing dead souls in the Rex club in Paris. I first thought it was a new version and then realized it was the original. I find the original a thousand times better than the WMC remix. I think this song is fantastic. The video has a joy division feel to it. The lyrics and melody are just great. The vocals are superb and the french accent really adds to it. Also the delivery is different than the remix. You have to watch the video and see Caro dance while she sings, I love it. She defines geek cool.



I hope you enjoy these songs as much as I have.