"I Smell Like A Genius"

When it's time to change...

My boss called me into a surprise meeting with HR at work last week. My company had just been bought out and lay-off rumors had been floating around for months. So I knew this was probably coming and I was OK with it.

Maybe too OK with it. Because I was by far the least emotional/nervous in the room. I even opened with a joke ("My boss and HR in one place? Are we finally going to discuss my promotion?"). I didn't say it was a good joke. And the nervous laughter I got in response told me this was not the appropriate time to pull a David Brent impression. (Speaking of awkwardness - I've always wanted to do a line-for-line reenactment of this, but at that particular moment, even though all the right players were there, it seemed inappropriate.)

The meeting went as well as it could, and my company did what it had always done these last 10 years, they took care of me. The severance was generous and I'm still around for another month to help ensure a smooth hand-off.

After it was all over, I felt relieved. In part because the band-aid had finally be ripped off, in part because transitions during buy-outs are always a mess for those still around, and in part because I realized I had fulfilled my mission at Advent Software​.

I built them a damn fine social media program from scratch. I had a great team helping me along the way, and together, we killed it. No small feat for a rag-tag marketing department of a global B2B company in the investment management industry.

I'm bummed that the momentum we built is seemingly coming to a halt, but I fully understand that this is how Corporate America works. The new owners paid big bucks for Advent. If they don't believe social media will help them achieve their goals...well, they're totally wrong (and I have the numbers to prove it), but that's not the point! The point is, its their call to make.

So I have some free time this summer. I'm going to spend a lot of it with my daughter. I'm going to watch movies in the theaters during the weekdays. I'm going to focus on losing the 25 lbs I put on in "anxiety weight". I'm going to take singing lessons. I'm going to find a way to finally fix that f-cking smoke detector has been dangling from our hallway ceiling for the past 2 months. Maybe I'll even revive this long-dead blog.

I'll start actively looking for a job once my transition period at Advent ends. I will miss my team greatly. I will miss Advent. I had many great co-workers and mentors and learned a lot. But as a famous super group once sang, "When it's time to change/You've got to rearrange/Who you are and what you're gonna be." Truer words were never spoken.

My favorites: a partial list from the first 1/3 of my life

In no particular order:

+ Superheroes

+ Inspiring drunk people to jump on stage and sing with my band while simultaneously inspiring sober people to dance

+ Sitting in TOTAL AWE as I realized that they weren't going to rescue Han by the end of the movie

+ The "everything is going to be all right" feeling I had at my wedding while Mrs. Malone and I were dancing in a big circle with our friends

+ Meeting Mr. Ricky

+ Watching the Pixies take the stage for their reunion warm-up date

+ My trips to L.A. with Kurt

+ Playing VS.

+ Chocodiles

+ Sitting in an inflatable kayak in the middle of Fallen Leaf Lake with the soon-to-be Mrs. Malone, naming ducks and writing songs about cabin mice who steal Pamprin.

+ Watching Sifl 'n Olly with Jesse

+ Playing catch with my dad when I was 5. With every catch, he would do an elaborate dance, pretending to almost drop the ball. Physical comedy at its finest.

+ Lemony band practice. From the giant burrito, to the Indian buffet - and all the music in-between

+ Starcraft

+ Mixing up punchlines with my mother on the long drive to grandma's house. [Why did the moron throw butter out the window? He wanted to see a butterfly. + How do you stop a rhino charging? Take away his credit card. = Why did the rhino throw the moron out the window? He was charging too much for the butter.]

+ My first concert. Billy Joel. Innocent Man tour

+ Projects with my buddy Frank, from our short lived DJ days as "The System" to our curtain call at Carrington Hall

+ Riding with Bob after school in his Mach-1, Tin Machine blaring on the stereo

+ The Big Lebowski

+ Sitting on the kitchen table and sharing a bottle of soda with my grandma while we watched cartoons

+ The Diary of Ann Frank - a stage play about the extermination of Jews seems to be an odd place for a 16-year-old to start learning about girls, but that's where it all started

+ Donuts

+ The Concubines, The Walkin' Walkers, Lemony, IBOPA, Huckleberry's Dolphin, Dominic Castillo & The Rock Savants, The Orange Peels, Corporate Whore/PBJ, The Gymnoblastics, The Brothers of Dissonance

+ Having my cousin wake me at 6 in the morning on Easter to check out our baskets

+ Opening packs of game-related merch with Chris and Michelle

+ Animals

+ Tina Moniece asking me to slow dance at 6th grade science camp

+ Trips to Tower Records with Bob, Eric, and Kurt

+ Sex

+ The Muppets

+ Losing my sh-t with Eric at 3AM New Year's morning after passing a stuffed bunny in the middle of the road

+ A nearly unbroken string of inappropriate family dinner conversations with my brothers for the past 15 years

+ "Air Force One" - terrorists attack President Harrison Ford's plane. During a close up of the dead pilot, she turns to me and says, "He had the fish".

+ Swimming off the Nepali Coastline in Kauai and feeling completely at peace

Album of the Year - We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank

I know it may seem a little premature to be naming the Album of the Year, but we here at ISLAG feel that with "Weird" Al on haitus and Britney coked out of her f-cking head, the music isn't going to get any better in 2007 than it is right now.

That said, the new Modest Mouse album, "We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank", is the Album of the Year for 2007. After spending a week with an advance copy (ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies), I can honestly say it's F-CKING AWESOME.

Johnny Marr (former member of The Smiths), joined the band for this album and I credit him for taking them to the next level of greatness. This album sounds alot like their last, "Good News For People Who Love Bad News", but with the songwriting kicked up a notch and a touch of 80s thrown in for good measure. And that goes a long way for me. (When I say 80s here, I'm talking Big Country/General Public/and, yes, The Smiths - not T'Pau/Will To Power/Taco.)

When I heard the first single off this album, the Arcade-Firey "Dashboard", I must admit I was...whelmed. It's good, but not as good as the majority of tracks off their last effort. I'm happy to report that "Dashboard" is not one of the stronger tracks on the album, though it is one of the more radio friendly.

The power from this album comes from tracks such as the cinematic ballad(?) "Missed the Boat", the 8 minute droning guitar symphony that is "Spitting Venom", and the dead-solid hooks in "Florida" and "Fire It Up". It doesn't hurt any that the production is spot on. Dennis Herring, the dude who produced thier last album, did another stellar job here. 

I can't express in words how into this album I am right now. "I love it so much I want to take it back behind the middle school and get it pregnant" is a good start though.

Run to your record store on March 20th and pick it up. It's the sh-t.