Al Davis and Steve Jobs

That man in black. The outlaw. He goes against the grain. Turns the law on it’s head. He demands the fancy of the damsel, gets the respect of the foreigner, and the admiration of the youth. When he blows into town, you know that change is a’coming.

No small coincidence that the story plays out in what was once the Wild West.

Steve Jobs, a Bay Area native, and Al Davis, an East Coast transplant, both died last week within a few days of each other. Both represented and embodied two of the most influential organizations based in the Bay Area, resonating out to their respective industries.

And both wore black.

Growing up in the 1980′s, the coolest new thing at school and at home were video games and computers. I remember when the Apple IIe showed up in our computer lab in junior high, there was a sign-up sheet to use it, de-glamorizing all of the P.E.T. computers running BASIC. When I got a chance to “work” on it, did I know what to do? No way. But I just knew that it was newer and cooler.

In 1984, I had just moved to the Bay Area from Chicago and the Raiders had just moved away to L.A. Being in junior high and trying to affiliate with something that would ground you in your personality and social groups, I explored allegiances and listened to the kids of disgruntled Raider fans. It was then that I heard the name Al Davis for the first time. I recall wondering “Who is Al Davis?  Is he the quarterback, the coach?” Never conceiving, as a pre-adolescent boy, that a sports team could be defined and personified by the OWNER. This was the person who everyone was mad at? He was no one to be vilified or deified… He didn’t even PLAY the game!

This man in black. Defied the NFL. Even dared to alienate his team’s hometown fanbase, abandoning their love and seeking his riches down south. (Home of some other visionary, polarizing magnates like William Mulholland and Walt Disney)

Those orange shorts.

1984 was the year that Raiders had just won the Super Bowl. In Los Angeles. Much to the dismay of my Raider-kin friends. It was also the year that famous Apple Super Bowl 1984 ad was released and the world was about to see something we affectionately know now as…. the Mac Classic.

I’m not sure if I was taken more by the blonde in orange booty-shorts or by the coolest thing that a computer could actually do: Make it easy for me to use.

The early to mid-1990′s played themselves out like this: the Mac became a great little tool for having at home while Bill Gates commoditized the user experience and brought us the rival DOS/Windows system. Going to market with an economical and “open” development environment, Microsoft and Windows began to dominate the PC market as well as mainstream business uses. The Apple products got pushed aside as educational luxuries, relegated to the computer labs of our universities and grade schools.

Steve Jobs had been forced out of Apple, and it was now being run by guys’ guys. Corporate veterans who thought running a company was a textbook position. Jobs had gone on to found NeXT computers, so that he could do things his own way. Of course this way became so attractive to Apple, they bought NeXT for $430M. Critical was the NeXTSTEP operating system which would eventually become Mac OS X (think iTunes’ DNA). Thus, the return to Apple for Jobs in 1996 where he was re-hired as CEO.

Likewise, the San Francisco 49ers had supplanted the Raiders as the Bay Area love team. The good boys in gold. Bringing home championships. The Raiders languished in LA with a laughably large LA Coliseum to fill with easily distracted Los Angeles fans. Still adamant about his team’s “Commitment to Excellence,” Al Davis never gave up on the team he had wholly personified. Knowing he had to make a move that would reinvigorate his franchise and mobilize the fan base, in true Hollywood dramatic fashion, he packed up the Raiders and moved them back to Oakland in 1995.

Ice Cube: Star of "Are We There Yet"

In many ways, they became known as Al Davis’ Raiders rather than Oakland’s or Los Angeles.’ And this move back to the Bay Area cemented firmly in the minds of men that this team belonged to one person and one person only. The mystique around the team transcended the location of the team, the skull and bones logo, and even the storied history of the 60′s and 70′s. It was real cool to be a Raider. Mirroring the gangsta rap, anti-establishment, hip-hop culture of the late 90′s, Raider gear eclipsed America’s team’s, the Dallas Cowboys, in all time merchandise revenue. Long gone was the blonde-haired blue-eyed man-boy. It was good to be bad. It was good to be the man in black. And this all trickled down from Al Davis. Now fans became fans of him and his middle-finger to the world.

In 1996, it was the second coming of Jobs at Apple. It was here that we saw Apple turn around from lovable loser to the gargantuan-ness it is today. Jobs’ brilliance never-ceased to amaze. He was probably the person who made the term “Keynote Speech” a mainstream phrase and the event, a sought-after ticket. He entertained at every turn and filled you with a hope of a better tomorrow today. He followed his what-if’s with check-this-out. He wore a black mock turtle neck for 15 years straight. I think he never wanted to take away from his soon-to-be-released product on the screen behind him.

In fifteen years, Apple went from a whimsical alternative to Microsoft to a market shifter in several vertical industries and reshaped the way in which we consume information, music and each other. There’s a lot of Steve Jobs in every piece of tech you interact with today. Apple branded or not.

Al Davis’ passing was as profound as Jobs’ in that his loss was greatly felt by not only Raider-lovers but football fans worldwide. The halo effect he had on today’s modern-day football game, arguably the most important and valuable entertainment commodity in this country, should never be underestimated. He was the first to hire a black head coach, a hispanic head coach, the youngest head coach and the first woman executive in all of football. He was instrumental in the merger of the AFL and NFL, thereby subverting the loss of teams like the New York Jets, New England Patriots, the Chiefs, the Chargers and the Dolphins.

Both Steve Jobs and Al Davis were entities that were greater than their material selves. That transcendence is the envy of CEO’s, coaches, bull-fighters and parents around the world: to be bigger than you are. These two were bigger than life and have left an indelible mark on the world we consume today. They have fed our love for entertainment and drama and showmanship and inspiration. They were both creators of something that was on one side or another of a love/hate conversation. Either way you have an opinion. And it takes quite a person to make millions of people in the world love your product or hate your product. But they will always respect your passion.

Extremely speaking, if you’re a football geek and don’t care about technology, or tech geek who doesn’t care much about watching the gridiron, one day you will pull out your iPhone and check a football score. And right there will be the shadow of two men in black.

Ellis, D. On the mound....

This is the story of Dock Ellis in 1970 pitching a no-hitter…on LSD….as told by him. The animation is well done, too. Laugh. Cuz this is funny.

I love baseball. It never gets old. Even when it’s old.

Credit: Damo.

Map of Rapper names: Ain't no future in yo' frontin'

Let’s get back to bloggin….

Check out this Infographic on Rapper names.

It’s from  a company called popchartlab.com. Poke around. They got some cool stuff.

I got lost looking at that graphic for a good 20 minutes. I plan to go back for more.

Old apartment. New baby.

So I am now almost three months into having Simone as my child. It’s been pretty cool, I must admit. Can you tell?

I think there are moments that we have in life that are pivotal. Birth, marriage, children, and death. That’s basically it. So you hear about it and you talk about it and you even go through it. But it doesn’t hit you until it hits you. And one day a few weeks ago it hit me.

I was standing in my old apartment in SF when it happened.

I had rented it out with a friend for a few years. It was a beautiful very nice SF apartment with Golden Gate views and original hardwood floors. It sat at the top of the hill and was taller than any building around. The rooftop view was a 360-degree panorama of a typical San Francisco skyline. It had plenty of space and even yard access.

When it was time for me to move in with the future wife, I had to consider staying at that apartment or moving somewhere else. As it was, it was an awkward time…being comfortable living the bachelor life but knowing I was moving into a new stage life. As most guys won’t admit but probably felt, there can be excitement mixed with trepidation. Lots of trepidation.

On top of that was the fact that I wanted to keep the apartment that I was in. I was afraid I wasn’t going to get anything better. But the problem was getting my roommate out and my girlfriend in. Now we didn’t really want to get into a pissing match about it so we left it alone. I just moved out with the girlfriend to start anew. Of course, there was always a part of me that imagined living in this apartment with a family.

So there I was about a month ago, standing in that apartment, Simone is 2 months young. I think to myself “I could be living here with Simone and Shireen. This place would be great. blah blah.” But then I realized: if I had stayed at that apartment with Shireen, the chance of Simone being born has been completely obliterated.

Think about it: Had we stayed there our lives today would be different in slight ways. Maybe we would have had sex one day and not the next. The chance that it was boy or girl changed significantly. If it was a girl it would have been a different girl, and we may not have named her Simone….?

It made me think about alternate futures based on my actions or inactions. “What if I had gone to Cal instead of Davis?”: Different friends, different career path… “What if I had not worked at Oracle?”: Wouldn’t have met my future wife …. And that’s when it hit me.

I have no more regrets. Everything I have done up until this point in time has led me up to where I am today. And chance has given me the kid that I have. So therefore, I can’t regret or second guess anything I have ever done in my life up until that point in time.

If I had moved into that apartment, I wouldn’t have Simone. Not THIS Simone.

It was liberating. Kids are fucking cool.

Are Corvettes even cool anymore?

I just read that Prince is 52. Damn. I feel old.

But it also makes you think….You can still rock at 52….

I’m just sayin’.

I'm a lover not a writer.

Yeah I just posted the link to this blog on FB. Does that mean I “went live?”

Feel free to peruse etc. But also send me a comment or email if there’s something you want me to write about…. Nothing is taboo or off limits. But I can also make something out of a benign subject. Try me.

I have several posts in draft form. So you may see a few posts be released at once. I am a father and do have a life, after all. Like last night. Friday night. Used to be happy hour. Now it’s bloggin’ time…

Enjoy.

Cube don't like shattered ice.

Qualifier: This is for city apartment dwellers or  people who have ice trays that you have to fill manually. Those of you with the automatic ice cube makers you can move on to the next post.

I hate shattered ice cubes. They get on my floor and make water everywhere.

Quick tip: If you want clear solid cubes of ice. Use your hottest tap water when you fill your tray.

Then you have nice cubes for your gin n’ juice.

Post-post script: FYI You should all know that I did an experiment with boiling water, hot tap water, room temp tap, and cold tap. I came up with hot tap water because it was more or less the same result as boiling water. And less time consuming.  One commenter said something about the clarity of the hot tap water (it comes through the hot water heater). That would be a case by case determination, I would imagine. If yours isn’t clear, then boil it.

Check out the line out the door.

So this blog isn’t really about coffee at all. “My kind of coffee” is a metaphor. Coffee being, well, you know, kind of a personal taste. Everyone likes it a different way. And if there aren’t enough choices, I am sure Starbux is dreamin up some more right now. This post right here, however, is about coffee. Because I do drink it. And I do want you to know about this.

So I went to Out The Door over on Bush St. with some friends for brunch. Had their coffee in a french press and asked about it because it was good. Really good. Like different than normal good. They told us it was a local company called Four Barrel Coffee.

The next week we went on a failed trip to a non-existent Farmer’s Market. Now having some time to kill we decided to check out Four Barrel. So we went through there and it was cool spot. There was a line out the door but it moved pretty quickly. The lattes we got were damn good. I bought a bag of coffee from there. Now the coffee is going to be more expensive here than your typical $10 bag. You’ll spend between $14-$18 on a nice bag.

chk out 4barrel : )

The place is choc-a-bloc with the requisite number of Mission tattooed and pierced coffee-house dwellers wearing the too-tight jeans. That number being ALL. There is nothing wrong with that….except I do consider the irony of wearing second-hand clothing while writing on Apple laptops. Whatever works. As far as I could tell, no one was laughing at me in my Warriors baseball hat and running shoes. So a nice place to hang. Feels nice and open with a good vibe.

Again, I am no coffee connoisseur but I do know good from bad and great from good. I give this place 5 coffee beans. Check it out, yo.

Four Barrel Coffee, 375 Valencia Street, San Francisco, CA 94103, (415) 252-0800

www.fourbarrelcoffee.com

BMW, Range Rover, Mercedes, BMW, BMW, Range Rover....

What’s the most expensive thing in your house? The TV? A bicycle? Some jewelry? Baseball cards? Whatever it is, I’ll bet you wouldn’t put it out in the city street overnight and expect it to be there the next day….

So don’t you think it’s crazy that we buy (or lease) cars… Then park them on the street?

One San Francisco city block could have 12 cars worth an average of $25,000.

That’s like $300,000.

I’m just sayin.