Tuesday, August 2, 2011
The Clips are Back 8/2/2011
Sorry for the hiatus. Today's edition of the clips is titled "Man, you're an asshole."
Don't Panic
Don't Panic.
We've become a society of worriers. There are no more MacGuyvers. When a precarious situation presents itself we think of the worst possible outcome. Although, sometimes the worst possible situation isn't as bad as we think.
I read James Altucher religiously. Call me crazy but I relate to every word he pounded out on a keyboard or swipes across the screen of his Ipad. I've begun to incorporate his thinking into my life. I think we all have a long way to go but it's helping, I think.
The other night two people stranded their cars under a bridge in a massive rainstorm. The cars were dead. I feel bad for them because as I write this they should be getting their first estimate for a new engine since theirs his almost certainly hydrolocked.
But is it so bad? It's money, sure. No one driving home from work through Prospect Park can turn their nose up to a bill for a new engine. Maybe it was time to replace the car. Take it as a life lesson. No one got hurt, it's a car. There will be more. Maybe the next one is a little older. Maybe it has a tape deck. Sometimes you need to take a step back in order to appreciate what you have and had. I drive my 1996 Chevy S10 most of the time because when I get into my Charger it feels like a BMW. It makes me appreciate the things I have and take for granted.
Coincidentally later that night as I was driving home from my night job a woman was pulled over on 130 in Jersey flailing her arms like she was on fire. I pulled over and put my window down. This is how car jackings happen but for some reason I decided to put myself in the compromised situation.
She was hysterical. She was trying to get to Philadelphia. She was damn close. I gave her the directions, she was one turn from 95 North but as I drove home I wondered if she even heard what I said. She was in a panic. The world is not going to end, there are more flights, life goes on. Buy a GPS unit.
I'm starting to panic about my life. My wife and kids are great. We worry about money. Following Altucher's "Worst Case Scenario" post what's the worst thing that can happen? If I lose my house maybe we'll have to move into an apartment. That wouldn't be ideal but maybe it would be across from a dog park. Maybe it would force us to all sit in the same room and talk and do puzzles instead of watching different TV shows in different rooms.
Things are never as bad as they seem. It's all about attitude. I know this, but for some reason I'm having a hard time applying it.
Monday, July 18, 2011
Therapy
They say therapists are like barbers. You need to go, you might not like the one you have but there's you don't stop cutting your hair because of one bad haircut.
I haven't been to therapy in about seven months. It got old, I felt like I was carrying the discussion. For $40 I'll go up to someone on the street, tell them my problems and have them agree with me. It probably won't take me an hour either.
Maybe it's just me but I think most of therapy is getting a second opinion on everyday issues. How many times has a therapist heard "is it me, or is this crazy?" It must be in the millions.
I wonder sometimes if maybe I should have gone to therapy sooner. How would it have changed me if I went in high school or college. Would I be an underacheiver who never completed homework or projects on time? Probably, but at least I could blame therapy.
I probably should have gone at some point earlier in my life. I thought I knew everything there was to know about the world. Of course I was wrong but no one ever listens to their parents at 17.
I haven't been to therapy in about seven months. It got old, I felt like I was carrying the discussion. For $40 I'll go up to someone on the street, tell them my problems and have them agree with me. It probably won't take me an hour either.
Maybe it's just me but I think most of therapy is getting a second opinion on everyday issues. How many times has a therapist heard "is it me, or is this crazy?" It must be in the millions.
I wonder sometimes if maybe I should have gone to therapy sooner. How would it have changed me if I went in high school or college. Would I be an underacheiver who never completed homework or projects on time? Probably, but at least I could blame therapy.
I probably should have gone at some point earlier in my life. I thought I knew everything there was to know about the world. Of course I was wrong but no one ever listens to their parents at 17.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
The Clips - July 13
One of my favorite jobs in professional sports was "doing the clips." You essentially scour the internet for any article related to your team or league and then jam the office copier for three hours. This is a new version of an old favorite. Enjoy!
Missing Brooklyn Boy, 8, Found Dead, Mutilated
This is a heinous story. You want to give your kids freedom and let them walk home from school but then guys like this ruin it for everyone.
90s Nickelodeon Nostalgia Returning To Your Television On Monday
Doug and Pete and Pete coming back? Now that's television I can watch!
Casey Anthony Found Disguised as Black Man in Philly
I can't make this stuff up people.
That's all for today. It's late and I have a one-on-one to prepare for. Follow me on twitter @unionkane and send your suggestions for The Clips.
The Morals Police
I'm not perfect. No one is. That's why it bothers me when people who have done nothing to break the law are criticized for their actions because they don't conform to the status quo. People are thin sliced (to steal from Malcolm Gladwell) based on their looks and reputation while we ignore the actual reality.
Take Howard Stern for example. The man has never had a DUI, never ran a dog fighting ring, never shot himself in the leg while carrying an illegal firearm, never beat his wife, had a love child, gone to rehab. Nothing.
His greatest crime as far as I can remember is explaining the human body over radio waves. Wow. That however, led to hearings in Congress. How hard is it to arrange a hearing in Congress? It can't be that difficult. Seems to me the most important things they had to worry about until recently were steroids in baseball and people saying bad words.
On the other hand, why do we still care about people like Amy Fisher? The girl shot her boyfriends wife in the face and we reward her by giving her an hour on VH1 every week on "Celebrity Rehab." The term celebrity now includes everyone who has ever made news apparently.
We line up to watch Amber and Gary literally hit each other on national television while a young child sits on a mattress with no sheets in the other room. The cameramen can't intervene because that would disrupt the "reality" of the show. I don't think I could last 15 minutes on location without calling one of those kids an asshole.
Some say Stern created reality television when he began broadcasting portions of his show on the E! channel. They may be right, although Stern takes credit for pretty much everything on television.
If reality television was actually real, maybe we would spend less time watching it because we'd realize other people's lives are just as boring as our own. The Real World is not a place where you live with seven sexy strangers in a ridiculous house rent free with no obligation to society. The real world is when you live in a studio apartment and work six days a week and drive a used Honda.
"You're not dying, you just don't have anything better to do." Probably the most underrated line in Ferris Beuller's Day Off but it may be the most meaningful one. Your life isn't boring, you're not depressed. The reason why you can't focus and sit around and wonder what the hell happened to yourself is because you're trying to be something you're not. We all think our lives should have played out like a John Hughes movie, but none of them did, because those were all movies. If John Cusak showed up in my parent's driveway holding a boombox to try and win over my sister my dad would have kicked his weird ass off our lawn. It doesn't happen that way. This is the real world.
It's time we stop worrying about what the "Real" housewives are doing and start worrying about our own. Talk to your old neighbor, take a walk around the block, go to the park. Do something, it's a lot more interesting than you think.
Take Howard Stern for example. The man has never had a DUI, never ran a dog fighting ring, never shot himself in the leg while carrying an illegal firearm, never beat his wife, had a love child, gone to rehab. Nothing.
His greatest crime as far as I can remember is explaining the human body over radio waves. Wow. That however, led to hearings in Congress. How hard is it to arrange a hearing in Congress? It can't be that difficult. Seems to me the most important things they had to worry about until recently were steroids in baseball and people saying bad words.
On the other hand, why do we still care about people like Amy Fisher? The girl shot her boyfriends wife in the face and we reward her by giving her an hour on VH1 every week on "Celebrity Rehab." The term celebrity now includes everyone who has ever made news apparently.
We line up to watch Amber and Gary literally hit each other on national television while a young child sits on a mattress with no sheets in the other room. The cameramen can't intervene because that would disrupt the "reality" of the show. I don't think I could last 15 minutes on location without calling one of those kids an asshole.
Some say Stern created reality television when he began broadcasting portions of his show on the E! channel. They may be right, although Stern takes credit for pretty much everything on television.
If reality television was actually real, maybe we would spend less time watching it because we'd realize other people's lives are just as boring as our own. The Real World is not a place where you live with seven sexy strangers in a ridiculous house rent free with no obligation to society. The real world is when you live in a studio apartment and work six days a week and drive a used Honda.
"You're not dying, you just don't have anything better to do." Probably the most underrated line in Ferris Beuller's Day Off but it may be the most meaningful one. Your life isn't boring, you're not depressed. The reason why you can't focus and sit around and wonder what the hell happened to yourself is because you're trying to be something you're not. We all think our lives should have played out like a John Hughes movie, but none of them did, because those were all movies. If John Cusak showed up in my parent's driveway holding a boombox to try and win over my sister my dad would have kicked his weird ass off our lawn. It doesn't happen that way. This is the real world.
It's time we stop worrying about what the "Real" housewives are doing and start worrying about our own. Talk to your old neighbor, take a walk around the block, go to the park. Do something, it's a lot more interesting than you think.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
16 and Life to Go
A lot of people use the term "Hell on Earth." It can describe anything from a trip to the dentist or your marriage. I never hear anyone say they're living in Purgatory on Earth though. In the middle with no where to go, no idea which way is up or down, and just how the hell they got there.
I don't know a ton of people who attack the day. Wake up in the morning and love what they do and who they work for. The fact is, there's always a boss. I laugh when people say they're going to open a restaurant and the "cash the checks." Starting a business is like having a second family. It's a never ending set of balls in the air and you'll be lucky if you can catch one, let alone juggle them all.
I was bitching about what I was doing career-wise to a friend of mine one time and I said "you know, the 16-year-old me has dictated what the 31-year-old me can do." When I was 16 I didn't know my ass from a hole in the ground, although if you asked me I was certain of the location of both holes.
I thought my dream job was to work in the NFL. Technically I accomplished that goal when I was 14 as a ball boy with the Eagles. Two years later I was filling out college applications and chose public relations because it meant I could work in the NFL in a capacity that didn't involve folding towels.
My first interview was a complete disaster. I remember driving to the Charlotte chain restaurant in Bruce Speight's black Honda as he began the process. I repeated every buzz word I could remember from my Public Relations 101 class at Mansfield. Everything except the only thing his department handled, the media. I think I was 19.
Bruce hired me. I'm sure only because I was referred to him by someone in the organization. That's the only way to get a job. Monster.com is garbage. If you want to land a job, land some friends of friends.
That summer internship led to an internship with the Philadelphia Eagles, which led to my first benefits providing job with the Philadelphia Soul which led to my last job in professional sports, a three-year stint with the Arizona Cardinals.
Life moves pretty fast. In the span of two weeks I moved out of my parents attic and 2250 miles away to a desert where I knew exactly zero people. Somehow, a 16-year-old Mike Kane guided himself into his dream job at 23.
That was it. I could have been the #3 media relations guy forever and thought I would be happy. I would have become a "lifer." One of the old guys at the yearly meetings who scoff at newfangled ideas of Twitter and Facebook. I would refuse to believe that there is any way to communicate with the public other than traditional mainstream media outlets.
Maybe I would be happy. I doubt it. I always lived by the American Dream. Get a good job, buy a house, send your kids to a better school, vacation at the shore, rinse, repeat, die.
I can cry and wish I had read James Altucher in 1996 and maybe gone against the norm and what was expected of me instead of following what I was interested in. I don't know anyone who has a passion for pharmaceutical vouchers and coupons, and if they exist, I don't want to meet them.
The thing is, it's not too late. Even if I take two years to learn a new craft that will put me at 33. Put in 25 years at something I love and I'll still be under 60.
The difference between knowing what you want to do, and doing it though, are balls. Do I have them?
I don't know a ton of people who attack the day. Wake up in the morning and love what they do and who they work for. The fact is, there's always a boss. I laugh when people say they're going to open a restaurant and the "cash the checks." Starting a business is like having a second family. It's a never ending set of balls in the air and you'll be lucky if you can catch one, let alone juggle them all.
I was bitching about what I was doing career-wise to a friend of mine one time and I said "you know, the 16-year-old me has dictated what the 31-year-old me can do." When I was 16 I didn't know my ass from a hole in the ground, although if you asked me I was certain of the location of both holes.
I thought my dream job was to work in the NFL. Technically I accomplished that goal when I was 14 as a ball boy with the Eagles. Two years later I was filling out college applications and chose public relations because it meant I could work in the NFL in a capacity that didn't involve folding towels.
My first interview was a complete disaster. I remember driving to the Charlotte chain restaurant in Bruce Speight's black Honda as he began the process. I repeated every buzz word I could remember from my Public Relations 101 class at Mansfield. Everything except the only thing his department handled, the media. I think I was 19.
Bruce hired me. I'm sure only because I was referred to him by someone in the organization. That's the only way to get a job. Monster.com is garbage. If you want to land a job, land some friends of friends.
That summer internship led to an internship with the Philadelphia Eagles, which led to my first benefits providing job with the Philadelphia Soul which led to my last job in professional sports, a three-year stint with the Arizona Cardinals.
Life moves pretty fast. In the span of two weeks I moved out of my parents attic and 2250 miles away to a desert where I knew exactly zero people. Somehow, a 16-year-old Mike Kane guided himself into his dream job at 23.
That was it. I could have been the #3 media relations guy forever and thought I would be happy. I would have become a "lifer." One of the old guys at the yearly meetings who scoff at newfangled ideas of Twitter and Facebook. I would refuse to believe that there is any way to communicate with the public other than traditional mainstream media outlets.
Maybe I would be happy. I doubt it. I always lived by the American Dream. Get a good job, buy a house, send your kids to a better school, vacation at the shore, rinse, repeat, die.
I can cry and wish I had read James Altucher in 1996 and maybe gone against the norm and what was expected of me instead of following what I was interested in. I don't know anyone who has a passion for pharmaceutical vouchers and coupons, and if they exist, I don't want to meet them.
The thing is, it's not too late. Even if I take two years to learn a new craft that will put me at 33. Put in 25 years at something I love and I'll still be under 60.
The difference between knowing what you want to do, and doing it though, are balls. Do I have them?
Blogs are back!
Welcome to The Kano Analysis.
I've long debated whether or not to start a blog. I hesitated for a long time because I couldn't come up with a good name. I didn't want to blatantly steal and name it "Kane Report" or "Kane Post," and then, my boss decided to send a meeting invitation to discuss "Kano Analysis." A blog was born.
Which brings me to my second concern as a blogger. Is starting a blog the 2011 equivalent of signing up for AOL? Between Facebook and Twitter is there still a need for a blog? I guess we'll find out soon.
In this blog I'll discuss everything from work, life, the other side of sports and anything else I feel like punching out on a keyboard.
That's all for now.
Kano
I've long debated whether or not to start a blog. I hesitated for a long time because I couldn't come up with a good name. I didn't want to blatantly steal and name it "Kane Report" or "Kane Post," and then, my boss decided to send a meeting invitation to discuss "Kano Analysis." A blog was born.
Which brings me to my second concern as a blogger. Is starting a blog the 2011 equivalent of signing up for AOL? Between Facebook and Twitter is there still a need for a blog? I guess we'll find out soon.
In this blog I'll discuss everything from work, life, the other side of sports and anything else I feel like punching out on a keyboard.
That's all for now.
Kano
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