I realized I was getting older when I didn’t know half of the celebrities in the American Express ads. That’s right I said it, “I’m getting older.” Most of my life I tried to stay in touch with what the youth were up to, but getting up on Saturday mornings to watch cartoons, checking out Soul Train, Comedy Central and paying very close attention to who is advertising, can make a grown man tired.

Some of you were probably wondering who the hell that guy is with Jessica Alba in the movie Good Luck Chuck? That my friends is Dane Cook, a young up-and-coming comedian who seems to have arrived. His fans knew it was him, us old farts who are hip to what you youngsters are up to…well, some of us knew too.

How did he get so popular? [click here to continue…]

My mother had a tendency to be a hypochondriac. Every six months it was a new ailment that she would see on TV or read in the paper. We couldn’t keep up. So when she complained of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome we kind of laughed, after all, she never worked on a computer or used her wrists like that in any way. Unfortunately her warnings this time turned into something very real.

She went into Hershey Medical Center in May of this year to endure a biopsy. It turns out her mysterious wrist problem was caused by [click here to continue…]

Imagine if Amazon decided to build bookstores in all the malls across the country. How successful do you think they would be? Not very. The simple truth is an online brand doesn’t translate into the brick and mortar world very well and visa versa. Starbuck’s doesn’t work online but is a great place to buy a cup of coffee. (I use their website to get coupons for a mocha Frappuccino.) The site becomes a support channel for them.

But what about brands that are about to be extinct due to a change in business methodologies? Companies like Blockbuster are probably not going to be around [click here to continue…]

There is only one electric company in New York City; Con Edison. When public utility brands like Con Edison treat their customers like children, what are the results? Extreme frustration from the consumer and no changes what-so-ever within the corporation. We have no choice when it comes to who our electric carrier is. They are a monopoly. Oh they may make you think you have a choice, but the reality is, it’s [click here to continue…]

Rupert Murdoch impresses me, but not for being hip and cool enough to get MySpace and what it represents, but for the simple fact that he is my father’s age. While my father is yelling at the local skateboarders to “get off my lawn!” Mr. Murdoch seems to embrace these teens without hesitation. No one else seems to understand the teen demographic better except Marvel Comics founder Stan Lee.

When I was 11, I built a tree house with my best friend Dieter Hauer. It became a sanctuary. It was our place to read comic books, check out baseball cards [click here to continue…]