Epic Brilliance

Great news from Hollywood this morning: after several years of pre-production and intense speculation, HBO has finally greenlit the sequel to “Band of Brothers”, the stunning 2001 mini-series from Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks which chronicled the legendary exploits of the 101st Airbourne’s Easy Company in Europe during WWII.

This follow-up effort is entitled “The Pacific” and will feature the “intertwined odysseys of three [real-life] U.S. Marines—Robert Leckie, John Basilone and Eugene Sledge—from the first clash with the Japanese in the jungles of Guadalcanal, through the rain forests of Cape Gloucester, across the coral strongholds of Peleliu, up the black sand terraces of Iwo Jima, through the killing fields of Okinawa, to the return home after V-J Day.”

The epic 10-hour mini-series is based on the book “With the Old Breed” by Eugene Sledge, as well as original interviews conducted by the filmmakers and Hugh Ambrose, who is continuing the World War II oral history work begun by his father Stephen E. Ambrose, the author of the book “Band of Brothers” (and consultant to the first BoB).

Expected release is 2009. I cannot wait.

Whenever I think of the Pacific fighting during WWII, I'm reminded of Norman Mailer’s “The Naked and the Dead” (although Terence Mallick’s masterful film adaptation of “The Thin Red Line”, which tells the story of the Guadalcanal, is a close second).

Mailer, who participated in the fighting in the South Pacific, published “The Naked and the Dead” in ’48. It was the first novel about WWII written by a returning soldier. It was also his first novel, period. Considering his age at the time (25) and the book’s scope, the accomplishment is astounding. It truly is a tour de force.

At over 800 pages, the novel does not focus on a single protagonist, but rather follows and puts you inside the minds of soldiers from all ranks and walks of life. One moment you are the lowliest, shit-scared private. Next you’re the tough-as-nails, bully sergeant. Then the green but determined and courageous (yet foolhardy?) lieutenant. On and up to bumbling colonels and brilliant generals. What’s so incredible about this book is how Mailer understands these different psyches and places you right in the middle of them.

Another interesting thing about “N&D” is the influence it had – and continues to have – on the American war-telling narrative in the latter half of the 20th century, and onwards. I’ve surely seen more war films than I’ve read such books, but I am absolutely positive that most, if not all, great war films in the last 50 years borrowed devices from Mailer’s work. Whether it be thematic focus or metaphorical conceit, Mailer crafted a modern language through which to depict war, and that language continues to thrive today.

Incidentally, I am slated to see Mailer – one of my true literary heroes – speak in about a month. The final guest in our Speaker Series was to be Kurt Vonnegut, but sadly, he recently and suddenly passed. The night was given to Mailer and his son, author and playwright John Buffalo Mailer, instead. I can’t say I’m not thrilled.

I’ve actually had the good fortune to see him speak once before. It was the late ‘90s in San Francisco and I’d just read “The Armies of the Night”. He was as blusterous and fascinating as you’d imagine, telling one audience member that she was an “idiot” for the question she asked (and he was right).

Single night tix are still available if you’re interested. It’s sure to be a raucous affair.

Celestial Wonder

Couple of interesting pieces re: the heavens recently.

First, there is the pic above of the Carina Nebula. This super detailed image covers a region some 50 light years across, and depicts a number of stars undergoing violent processes of “birth and death”. The shot is a composite of 48 Hubble pics taken in 2005.

This article has more info, including the tidbit that Hubble has now been in operation for 17 years. Amazing! I can’t believe it’s been that long, and also that the instrument has continued to function so well all this time (aside from the first dramatic hiccups early in its days).

The second bit in the news recently was the discovery of a particularly Earth-like planet. It’s in what astronomers call the “habitable zone”, the orbit around a star in which temps are comparable to what we have here on our planet. It’s an intriguing discovery for sure. TIME Magazine puts the find into context:

Life on the New Planet?

By JEFFREY KLUGER

Wednesday, Apr. 25, 2007

Debating whether suns other than our own have planets has always been like debating whether cats other than your own have kittens. The answer is self-evidently yes.

All stars form more or less the same way after all — coalescing out of the same celestial gas and often leaving a dusting of the stuff behind that can, in turn, coalesce into planets. All stars can additionally snag passing bodies in their gravitational lasso, conscripting new worlds to add to the home-grown litter. So it was no surprise in the early 1990s when astronomers began detecting these so-called extrasolar planets circling distant suns, and it's no surprise that in the years since they've spotted more than 220 of them. But the latest one added to the list is by far the best.

On Tuesday, a team of European astronomers announced that they had not only found a new planet circling a comparatively nearby star in the constellation Libra, but that that planet is unexpectedly Earth-like. Like Earth, it orbits a comfortable distance from its sun; like Earth, it maintains a surface temperature somewhere between 32 and 104 degrees Fahrenheit. Most importantly, like Earth, it could easily harbor surface water. In the biological arithmetic we know best, warmth and water often equal life.

For all its terrestrial feel, the new planet — unpoetically dubbed Gliese 581c — has a decidedly extraterrestrial look. It is probably more than 1.5 times the diameter of Earth and five times heavier. But unlike our world, which orbits a comfortable 92.9 million miles from the flames of the sun, 581c hovers just 7 million miles from its home star. What prevents it from being incinerated like a match head is that its star is a red dwarf, only about one one-hundredth as bright as the sun. The dim light coupled with the planet's close proximity places it in what astronomers call the habitable zone: the spot at which temperatures remain comfortable and water can remain liquid. All this has led to a fair amount of astronomical hyperventilating. "On the treasure map of the universe, one would be tempted to mark this planet with an X," said Xavier Delfosse, an astronomer with Grenoble University in France and one of the planet's co-discoverers. Dmitri Sasselov of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, went further, enthusing to The New York Times, "It's 20 light-years [away]. We can go there." (Sasselov did not make it clear just how we'd make that 120 trillion mile trip when it still takes us eight months to cover the 35 million miles to Mars.)

Even if we could visit 581c, there would be reasons to wait a bit before we light the rockets. For one thing, just because the planet could have liquid water doesn't mean it does. The body was detected like all extrasolar planets initially are, not by direct observation, but by measuring the infinitesimal gravitational wobble it causes in its home star. We won't get a clearer sense of its makeup until its orbit carries it in front of the star and the brief interference in the wavelength and intensity of the incoming light allows us to make some inferences about its composition. This will also tell us if the planet has an atmosphere and if it is thin and wispy like Mars's or suffocatingly dense like Venus's — neither of which promises good things for the kind of life we're most familiar with.

What's more, there are plenty of far more promising places to hunt for life closer to home. Sunlight is not the only kind of energy that can fire the biological furnaces; so can subsurface heat. Jupiter's icy moon Europa is thought to have a rich, salty, globe-girdling ocean sloshing just beneath its surface rind of water ice. Very little solar light reaches so far into space, and even less makes it down to the dark ocean inside Europa. But the gravitational flexing of the little world caused by the movement of Jupiter's other moons heats up its innards the same way a wire hanger heats up when you bend it back and forth. This is what keeps Europa's ocean liquid, and this could could also help spark life.

Mars too could be home to similarly hearty subsurface life forms, as could two of Jupiter's other moons, Ganymede and Callisto. If the discovery here on Earth of tough little organisms living miles below ground, frozen in polar ice and hanging on in the broiling waters of deep-sea vents indicates anything, it's that biology emerges in very improbable places. The most remarkable thing we may come to conclude about 581c is that whatever secrets it holds may not be that remarkable at all.

Music of the Moment

I haven’t posted much about new music lately, and that’s mainly because I haven’t been much inspired by what’s out there at the moment. This year has certainly gotten off to a slow start.

Yeah, The Shins’ album is pretty great, but it leaked last year. Same with Lily Allen, who hit it big via the UK (and MySpace) far before her official U.S. release. Arcade Fire’s much-anticipated album is okay, but nothing special. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah dropped a sophomore bomb. As did The Kaiser Chiefs. And Air’s latest is a huge letdown – definitely their worst LP to date.

One album I have been digging is the self-titled debut by The Bird and the Bee. I’ve been playing it a bunch for the last month or two and really enjoying it, but last night I had the good fortune to see them play live for the first time, and now I’m completely, madly, adoringly obsessed.

Comprised of L.A.’s Inara George and Greg Kurstin, the duo call their sound “psychedelic jazz”, although it’s more like lackadaisical space pop. And it kills.

George’s vocals are sometimes ironic and tongue in check, sometimes utterly earnest and naked. Her soothing voice has a way of inducing a trance-like state of empathy. Kurstin is a multi-instrumentalist who mainly crafts lush – yet, at times, spooky – soundscapes, largely with Wurlitzers and the like. Together, they write exceedingly catchy sugar pop melodies, enveloped in kitschy and warm shag carpet for the ears.

I expected to somewhat enjoy seeing them live, but I was not ready for what I witnessed last night. My fear was that their mellow stylings – their music is ideal for breezy springtime listening while sprawled in a hammock – would not translate to the stage. I feared I might find a couple of slightly over-the-hill, pretentious hipsters sliding through their music whilst peering down their noses at their audience. I couldn’t have been farther from the truth.

The pair were exceedingly warm and open and enthusiastic, and put on a fantastic show. Backed by a drummer, guitarist and three back-up singers, The Bird and the Bee is one big ball of fun. And that smile! Inara shows her teeth and next thing you know you’re gallivanting with her on a Moon bounce.

Do yourself a favor and grab the album. Next, check out this live set recorded a couple weeks ago in D.C. when they opened for Lily Allen (B&B's Kurstin co-wrote a number of songs on her hit album). Finally, meet me May 4th at The Echo for their next show – what I describe above cannot be discerned from their recordings; you must experience it in the flesh.

UPDATE: A friend of mine who was at the show took this vid. This was their last song, a cover of The Bee Gees' "How Deep is Your Love". That's Sia (from Zero 7) off to the side flopping around. She's apparently close with the band, and definitely a big fan. She spent the whole night right next to us, drinking like a sailor, giggling like a school girl, and jumping up and down like a fish trying to get back into its bowl. She was hilarious and extremely friendly, if only barely intelligble.

The Evolution of Professional Whoredom

Esquire Mag ran the following piece. It’s so true. (It also partially explains why I have so much more respect for Christina Aguilera than for her peers - her miraculous voice is the other part of that equation, of course.)


Why Does Joss Stone Look Like Such a Whore?

Blame the "Butterfly Effect."

By Jason Notte
4/19/2007

While flipping through one of those vapid glossies the other day, I landed on the picture of a familiar-yet-horrible looking woman, a crimson haired Gorgon who looked like she just stumbled out of a Newark go-go bar.

And then it hit me: Hey, that's Joss Stone! And she's shilling her new record, Introducing Joss Stone, which is filled with the kinds of songs she would have just danced to at the aforementioned Newark establishment. What the hell happened to her? Is this the same 15-year-old prodigy that Rolling Stone compared to Delta bluesmen? Wasn't this the white British girl who was touted as the flag-bearer of the neo-soul movement? How did she end up singing Destiny's Child castoffs and strutting around in dresses that look like they were swiped off a table at Scores?

Like Nelly Furtado, Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, and Jessica Simpson before her, Stone has become another victim of the "Butterfly Effect." See, when a promising female artist reaches her third or fourth album, they will invariably announce their latest work showcases the "real them." And sadly, that "reality" falls somewhere south of the third-string bartender at Hogs & Heifers and just north of a Hunt's Point pavement pounder.

"The biggest magazine success story of the last 10 years has been Maxim, and in the Maximization of the music industry, the only way in if you’re a female artist is to show ass,” said Jim DeRogatis, rock critic at the Chicago Sun-Times.

The phenomenon takes its name from the album that spawned it, Mariah Carey's 1997 opus Butterfly. "Fantasy," her 1995 collaboration with Ol' Dirty Bastard, was a peek at things to come, but that album still bore the saccharine-laden "One Sweet Day" and other territorial markings of then-husband Tommy Mottola. One the divorce papers were signed, Carey's inhibitions and clothing disappeared faster than free sandwiches at a sportswriter's convention and the cry went out: Get me a rapper, any rapper. Diddy answered the call and Mariah's turn as a Bond-girl wannabe in the "Honey" video led to bikini car washes, hotpants flag waving at NASCAR races and, most regrettably, Glitter.

“But how long can you really do the coquette thing, especially with Mariah in her 40s?” asks DeRogatis. “But what do you want her to be -- Patti Smith?”

After Mariah, the Butterfly Effect began spreading like the influenza outbreak of 1918. Jessica Simpson abandoned her Christian roots before pimping out her marriage on a reality TV show, "acting" in The Dukes of Hazzard, and ultimately returning to the Carey blueprint with the post-divorce "real me" album Public Affair last year.

The Butterfly Effect cannot be stopped by national boundaries, either -- witness the profound affect it's had on the budding Canadian songbird. Five years ago, Nelly Furtado was a baggy jeaned, white T-shirted Portuguese-Canadian whose rhythmic delivery was more "Like A Bird" then a "Butterfly." Despite disappearing to have a child and releasing a second album that went ignored by much of the world, she seemed well on her way to carving out a inoffensive globalbeat niche for herself.

And now she buys body glitter by the pound, thanks to Timbaland, who turned her out like a proper female artist. Her new album? It's called Loose. The first single? "Promiscuous Girl." How subtle.

“Its for the same reason hair bands made ballads back in the ’80s: their audience was a bunch of beer-drinking wannabe biker boys and they needed something that would get their girlfriends to come to the shows,” says DeRogatis. “With the ‘Butterfly’ artists, they’re making girlish pop, but there’s the added element for the guys. The girls scream and the guys drool.”

So is there any hope for these young ingenues? Oddly enough, the biggest hope is the worst offender: Christina Aguilera, who bypassed butterfly and went straight to Mothra with 2002's Stripped, where her tour costuming largely consisted of making sure her hair extensions covered the naughty bits. But in the five years since, Aguilera has gone back into the cocoon, reincarnating herself as one of the Andrews sisters (granted, an Andrews sister with an amazing boob job) and cancelled her membership in the Pussycat Dolls poledancers union.

Nothing against Joss Stone growing up and expressing her feminine wiles -- but just because you have wings doesn't mean you have to spread them.

Moving Forward by Stepping Back

Stanford’s James D. Fearon has written a piece in this month’s Foreign Affairs (a periodical published by the Council on Foreign Relations) detailing what he sees as the de facto reality on the ground in Iraq: namely, that it is too late for our presence to stem the tide of violence, and that, sad as it may be, the only way beyond what is surely now a civil war is to let the various players slug it out until a dominant party emerges from the conflict and takes hold of the country. Only then will order return.

Fearon has studied every civil war to take place in the post-WWII era, and feels that the odds are not in our favor with regard to our hope of stabilizing the country through our own political will and military force.

Yes, his depiction of the current scenario over there is dire. And, yes, his advocacy of our pulling back from the central theater of operations to function more in a support/training role is tantamount in some ways to a “cut and run” strategy. But after reading his piece, and hearing him (and others) speak at length on the subject, I believe he may be right. His outlook and recommendations may yet constitute the absolute realpolitik. Could this be the best (i.e. least ugly) way forward?

Read his policy paper here.

Maradona Reborn

Ever since World Cup 2006, Argentina’s Lionel Messi has been my favorite football (soccer) player in the world. He’s small and fast, with ridiculous ball-handling skills and an undying heart of passion.

The following goal is exactly why I love him. The comparisons to his countryman Maradona are inescapable.



UPDATE: Someone's gone through the trouble of putting Messi's goal side by side with Maradona's legendary score from the 1986 Argentina/England World Cup match, voted by fans as the “Goal of the Century” in a 2002 poll by FIFA. The similarities are staggering.

Truth!

The Los Angeles Philharmonic organization has just announced an intriguing series of dates to take place later this spring, entitled Shadow of Stalin:

After Shostakovich was denounced in the Soviet newspaper Pravda, a brutal struggle between art and tyranny began. Through concerts, film screenings, and discussions of art & architecture, you are invited to discover the vibrant artistry from that hostile time.

The night that most jumped out at me, of course, was Pravda. Fashioned as the Disney Hall’s first ever “rave-like” event (a moniker slapped on, I assume, due to its relatively late starting time of 10pm), Pravda will feature “DJs, VJs, artists, and live musicians as they dissect the sounds, sights, and philosophies of the Stalinist-era Soviet Union. Exploding the oppression and exposing the truth, these progressive artists will re-mix the music of Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and Mosolov, and visuals from films including Battleship Potemkin, Alexander Nevsky, and more.”

The slate of featured artists includes Cut Chemist, DJ Spooky and Amon Tobin.

Tix are now available via Ticketmaster at a range of different prices which afford you “general admission” access to a particular section of seats. We opted for Front Orchestra Center ($50/ticket).

I assume everyone will be cruising around all night anyway, but for a few extra bucks, I’d like to know I have access to the best seats in the house whenever I please.

Grab your tix now - should be a truly unique event!

Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

Lee Iacocca, of Chrysler fame, has written a book with a few words of criticism for the current administration, and for the general direction in which our country is headed.

Typically, I’m not a fan of such wide-sweeping, cynical, alarmist material, but he’s got some great points in here (other than what he identifies as the Iraq War’s raison d’être, which I suspect to be the establishment of a military/intelligence base in that region of the world, not a grab at oil money).

Here’s an excerpt:


Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

By Lee Iacocca with Catherine Whitney

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I
Had Enough?

Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, " features www.bordersstores.com>
Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I'll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!

You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies. Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don't need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we're fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions. That's not the promise of America my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I've had enough. How about you?

I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have.

My friends tell me to calm down. They say, "Lee, you're eighty-two years old. Leave the rage to the young people." I'd love to—as soon as I can pry them away from their iPods for five seconds and get them to pay attention. I'm going to speak up because it's my patriotic duty. I think people will listen to me. They say I have a reputation as a straight shooter. So I'll tell you how I see it, and it's not pretty, but at least it's real. I'm hoping to strike a nerve in those young folks who say they don't vote because they don't trust politicians to represent their interests. Hey, America, wake up. These guys work for us.

Who Are These Guys, Anyway?

Why are we in this mess? How did we end up with this crowd in Washington? Well, we voted for them—or at least some of us did. But I'll tell you what we didn't do. We didn't agree to suspend the Constitution. We didn't agree to stop asking questions or demanding answers. Some of us are sick and tired of people who call free speech treason. Where I come from that's a dictatorship, not a democracy.

And don't tell me it's all the fault of right-wing Republicans or liberal Democrats. That's an intellectually lazy argument, and it's part of the reason we're in this stew. We're not just a nation of factions. We're a people. We share common principles and ideals. And we rise and fall together.

Where are the voices of leaders who can inspire us to action and make us stand taller? What happened to the strong and resolute party of Lincoln? What happened to the courageous, populist party of FDR and Truman? There was a time in this country when the voices of great leaders lifted us up and made us want to do better. Where have all the leaders gone?

The Test of a Leader

I've never been Commander in Chief, but I've been a CEO. I understand a few things about leadership at the top. I've figured out nine points—not ten (I don't want people accusing me of thinking I'm Moses). I call them the "Nine Cs of Leadership." They're not fancy or complicated. Just clear, obvious qualities that every true leader should have. We should look at how the current administration stacks up. Like it or not, this crew is going to be around until January 2009. Maybe we can learn something before we go to the polls in 2008. Then let's be sure we use the leadership test to screen the candidates who say they want to run the country. It's up to us to choose wisely.

So, here's my C list:

A leader has to show CURIOSITY. He has to listen to people outside of the "Yes, sir" crowd in his inner circle. He has to read voraciously, because the world is a big, complicated place. George W. Bush brags about never reading a newspaper. "I just scan the headlines," he says. Am I hearing this right? He's the President of the United States and he never reads a newspaper? Thomas Jefferson once said, "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter." Bush disagrees. As long as he gets his daily hour in the gym, with Fox News piped through the sound system, he's ready to go.

If a leader never steps outside his comfort zone to hear different ideas, he grows stale. If he doesn't put his beliefs to the test, how does he know he's right? The inability to listen is a form of arrogance. It means either you think you already know it all, or you just don't care. Before the 2006 election, George Bush made a big point of saying he didn't listen to the polls. Yeah, that's what they all say when the polls stink. But maybe he should have listened, because 70 percent of the people were saying he was on the wrong track. It took a "thumping" on election day to wake him up, but even then you got the feeling he wasn't listening so much as he was calculating how to do a better job of convincing everyone he was right.

A leader has to be CREATIVE, go out on a limb, be willing to try something different. You know, think outside the box. George Bush prides himself on never changing, even as the world around him is spinning out of control. God forbid someone should accuse him of flip-flopping. There's a disturbingly messianic fervor to his certainty. Senator Joe Biden recalled a conversation he had with Bush a few months after our troops marched into Baghdad. Joe was in the Oval Office outlining his concerns to the President—the explosive mix of Shiite and Sunni, the disbanded Iraqi army, the problems securing the oil fields. "The President was serene," Joe recalled. "He told me he was sure that we were on the right course and that all would be well. 'Mr. President,' I finally said, 'how can you be so sure when you don't yet know all the facts?'" Bush then reached over and put a steadying hand on Joe's shoulder. "My instincts," he said. "My instincts." Joe was flabbergasted. He told Bush, "Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough." Joe Biden sure didn't think the matter was settled. And, as we all know now, it wasn't.

Leadership is all about managing change—whether you're leading a company or leading a country. Things change, and you get creative. You adapt. Maybe Bush was absent the day they covered that at Harvard Business School.

A leader has to COMMUNICATE. I'm not talking about running off at the mouth or spouting sound bites. I'm talking about facing reality and telling the truth. Nobody in the current administration seems to know how to talk straight anymore. Instead, they spend most of their time trying to convince us that things are not really as bad as they seem. I don't know if it's denial or dishonesty, but it can start to drive you crazy after a while. Communication has to start with telling the truth, even when it's painful. The war in Iraq has been, among other things, a grand failure of communication. Bush is like the boy who didn't cry wolf when the wolf was at the door. After years of being told that all is well, even as the casualties and chaos mount, we've stopped listening to him.

A leader has to be a person of CHARACTER. That means knowing the difference between right and wrong and having the guts to do the right thing. Abraham Lincoln once said, "If you want to test a man's character, give him power." George Bush has a lot of power. What does it say about his character? Bush has shown a willingness to take bold action on the world stage because he has the power, but he shows little regard for the grievous consequences. He has sent our troops (not to mention hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens) to their deaths—for what? To build our oil reserves? To avenge his daddy because Saddam Hussein once tried to have him killed? To show his daddy he's tougher? The motivations behind the war in Iraq are questionable, and the execution of the war has been a disaster. A man of character does not ask a single soldier to die for a failed policy.

A leader must have COURAGE. I'm talking about balls. (That even goes for female leaders.) Swagger isn't courage. Tough talk isn't courage. George Bush comes from a blue-blooded Connecticut family, but he likes to talk like a cowboy. You know, My gun is bigger than your gun. Courage in the twenty-first century doesn't mean posturing and bravado. Courage is a commitment to sit down at the negotiating table and talk.

If you're a politician, courage means taking a position even when you know it will cost you votes. Bush can't even make a public appearance unless the audience has been handpicked and sanitized. He did a series of so-called town hall meetings last year, in auditoriums packed with his most devoted fans. The questions were all softballs.

To be a leader you've got to have CONVICTION—a fire in your belly. You've got to have passion. You've got to really want to get something done. How do you measure fire in the belly? Bush has set the all-time record for number of vacation days taken by a U.S. President—four hundred and counting. He'd rather clear brush on his ranch than immerse himself in the business of governing. He even told an interviewer that the high point of his presidency so far was catching a seven-and-a-half-pound perch in his hand-stocked lake.

It's no better on Capitol Hill. Congress was in session only ninety-seven days in 2006. That's eleven days less than the record set in 1948, when President Harry Truman coined the term do-nothing Congress. Most people would expect to be fired if they worked so little and had nothing to show for it. But Congress managed to find the time to vote itself a raise. Now, that's not leadership.

A leader should have CHARISMA. I'm not talking about being flashy. Charisma is the quality that makes people want to follow you. It's the ability to inspire. People follow a leader because they trust him. That's my definition of charisma. Maybe George Bush is a great guy to hang out with at a barbecue or a ball game. But put him at a global summit where the future of our planet is at stake, and he doesn't look very presidential. Those frat-boy pranks and the kidding around he enjoys so much don't go over that well with world leaders. Just ask German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who received an unwelcome shoulder massage from our President at a G-8 Summit. When he came up behind her and started squeezing, I thought she was going to go right through the roof.

A leader has to be COMPETENT. That seems obvious, doesn't it? You've got to know what you're doing. More important than that, you've got to surround yourself with people who know what they're doing. Bush brags about being our first MBA President. Does that make him competent? Well, let's see. Thanks to our first MBA President, we've got the largest deficit in history, Social Security is on life support, and we've run up a half-a-trillion-dollar price tag (so far) in Iraq. And that's just for starters. A leader has to be a problem solver, and the biggest problems we face as a nation seem to be on the back burner.

You can't be a leader if you don't have COMMON SENSE. I call this Charlie Beacham's rule. When I was a young guy just starting out in the car business, one of my first jobs was as Ford's zone manager in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. My boss was a guy named Charlie Beacham, who was the East Coast regional manager. Charlie was a big Southerner, with a warm drawl, a huge smile, and a core of steel. Charlie used to tell me, "Remember, Lee, the only thing you've got going for you as a human being is your ability to reason and your common sense. If you don't know a dip of horseshit from a dip of vanilla ice cream, you'll never make it." George Bush doesn't have common sense. He just has a lot of sound bites. You know—Mr.they'll-welcome-us-as-liberators-no-child-left-behind-heck-of-a-job-Brownie-mission-accomplished Bush.

Former President Bill Clinton once said, "I grew up in an alcoholic home. I spent half my childhood trying to get into the reality-based world—and I like it here."

I think our current President should visit the real world once in a while.

The Biggest C is Crisis

Leaders are made, not born. Leadership is forged in times of crisis. It's easy to sit there with your feet up on the desk and talk theory. Or send someone else's kids off to war when you've never seen a battlefield yourself. It's another thing to lead when your world comes tumbling down.

On September 11, 2001, we needed a strong leader more than any other time in our history. We needed a steady hand to guide us out of the ashes. Where was George Bush? He was reading a story about a pet goat to kids in Florida when he heard about the attacks. He kept sitting there for twenty minutes with a baffled look on his face. It's all on tape. You can see it for yourself. Then, instead of taking the quickest route back to Washington and immediately going on the air to reassure the panicked people of this country, he decided it wasn't safe to return to the White House. He basically went into hiding for the day—and he told Vice President Dick Cheney to stay put in his bunker. We were all frozen in front of our TVs, scared out of our wits, waiting for our leaders to tell us that we were going to be okay, and there was nobody home. It took Bush a couple of days to get his bearings and devise the right photo op at Ground Zero.

That was George Bush's moment of truth, and he was paralyzed. And what did he do when he'd regained his composure? He led us down the road to Iraq—a road his own father had considered disastrous when he was President. But Bush didn't listen to Daddy. He listened to a higher father. He prides himself on being faith based, not reality based. If that doesn't scare the crap out of you, I don't know what will.

A Hell of a Mess

So here's where we stand. We're immersed in a bloody war with no plan for winning and no plan for leaving. We're running the biggest deficit in the history of the country. We're losing the manufacturing edge to Asia, while our once-great companies are getting slaughtered by health care costs. Gas prices are skyrocketing, and nobody in power has a coherent energy policy. Our schools are in trouble. Our borders are like sieves. The middle class is being squeezed every which way. These are times that cry out for leadership.

But when you look around, you've got to ask: "Where have all the leaders gone?" Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, competence, and common sense? I may be a sucker for alliteration, but I think you get the point.

Name me a leader who has a better idea for homeland security than making us take off our shoes in airports and throw away our shampoo? We've spent billions of dollars building a huge new bureaucracy, and all we know how to do is react to things that have already happened.

Name me one leader who emerged from the crisis of Hurricane Katrina. Congress has yet to spend a single day evaluating the response to the hurricane, or demanding accountability for the decisions that were made in the crucial hours after the storm. Everyone's hunkering down, fingers crossed, hoping it doesn't happen again. Now, that's just crazy. Storms happen. Deal with it. Make a plan. Figure out what you're going to do the next time.

Name me an industry leader who is thinking creatively about how we can restore our competitive edge in manufacturing. Who would have believed that there could ever be a time when "the Big Three" referred to Japanese car companies? How did this happen—and more important, what are we going to do about it?

Name me a government leader who can articulate a plan for paying down the debt, or solving the energy crisis, or managing the health care problem. The silence is deafening. But these are the crises that are eating away at our country and milking the middle class dry.

I have news for the gang in Congress. We didn't elect you to sit on your asses and do nothing and remain silent while our democracy is being hijacked and our greatness is being replaced with mediocrity. What is everybody so afraid of? That some bobblehead on Fox News will call them a name? Give me a break. Why don't you guys show some spine for a change?

Had Enough?

Hey, I'm not trying to be the voice of gloom and doom here. I'm trying to light a fire. I'm speaking out because I have hope. I believe in America. In my lifetime I've had the privilege of living through some of America's greatest moments. I've also experienced some of our worst crises—the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War, the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War, the 1970s oil crisis, and the struggles of recent years culminating with 9/11. If I've learned one thing, it's this: You don't get anywhere by standing on the sidelines waiting for somebody else to take action. Whether it's building a better car or building a better future for our children, we all have a role to play. That's the challenge I'm raising in this book. It's a call to action for people who, like me, believe in America. It's not too late, but it's getting pretty close. So let's shake off the horseshit and go to work. Let's tell 'em all we've had enough.

Skybound

So I flew this weekend. As in, I sat behind the controls of a plane and flew the fucker. Very cool experience. Definitely not as difficult as I thought it would be. The Cessna I flew was very forgiving – it was as if it wanted to be up in the sky.

We took off from SM airport (I pulled back on the controls as soon as we hit 55 knots), hit a right at the coast, and cruised for about half an hour at 3500 ft., up above Malibu.

Christy – my ridiculously young and somewhat attractive flight instructor – offered a few tips, then simply let me have at it up there. I rolled this way and banked that way, climbed here and dove there…even got into a bit of a spiral turn where we could feel the Gs. It was exhilarating and quite beautiful, really.

On the way back inland, I made a point of veering off course a bit...flying close enough to my apartment to see the actual building. Then we followed the 10 for a while, hit a 180, and touched back down.

I don’t feel the need to slap down ten grand and get my license, but I would def do it again. Some pics:

Instructor Christy and Captain Tomorrow

Me & my wings

The marine layer

The L.A. basin
Ahoy!