Success, failure, and buckets. Lots of buckets.
Sunday, August 29th, 2010 //0 comments
I’m no longer the IT Director at Latina… because I’m now the Director of Information Technology and Digital Media! The promotion is 
something that had been talked about in the past, but official word got out from the Publisher/Co-President of the company on Tuesday afternoon:
It is with great pleasure that we announce Matt Fox’s promotion to Director of Information Technology & Digital Media here at Latina Media Ventures.
Matt joined Latina in June 2007 as IT Director. While his primary responsibility was the network, all things IT here at Latina as well as IT troubleshooting, Matt soon began using his considerable talents to assist with Latina.com. He has since been incredibly instrumental in executing our brand new re-design; beautifully so and in a very short turnaround time.
Boom.
I’ve had the chance to do a lot of really great work during my time at Latina; some of which was expected of me, some of which wasn’t (and was made painfully clear at times), and it feels great to know they’ve noticed the results. It doesn’t really mean much of a change from the work I’m already doing, but I will have a couple of people answering to me now.
There was plenty of time to think about my promotion, and some other stuff, during the train ride home on Tuesday afternoon. There was a fire in a switching tower outside of the Long Island Rail Road’s Jamaica station on Monday morning, causing a ton of train cancellations and schedule modifications all week long. I don’t know how the LIRR managed, but it turns out that they’ve been using the same switching system in the affected tower for 97 years. Considering the lack of upgrades, I guess it’s safe to assume that the majority of the $400+ I pay each month is going overtime pay for the hordes of LIRR staff working on the problem, and not proactive (and long overdue) upgrades. OK, that wasn’t fair – they do have a new system going online in 2 months, but they could at least work on keeping the “blue juice” from the toilets in the trains from getting on to the floors.
Monday was worse; The LIRR simply stated that train service would be suspended, and took a couple of hours to even explain what was going on. Luckily, my co-worker, Cameron had rented a car to finish up some personal items and offered to drive me out to the island. It worked out well – I got home and he was able to go to some of the larger chain stores out here. Sure there are Target and Home Depot locations in the city, but are they as huge as the ones out here AND conveniently located just minutes away from Taco Bell and White Castle? I got a shot of Cameron (above) posing with some buckets at the Home Depot. We have a friend named Luis. He loves the buckets. We don’t know why. We don’t ask.
As I said earlier, the extra long commute time back and forth from the city left me with plenty of time to think. It’s amazing to see just how much can happen over the course of a year.
About 12 months ago, I found out that Latina would be moving to new offices. The timing completely sucked. I was planning on taking a trip to Sweden with some friends, and the day we’d all be leaving the States happened to be the same day as the move. Needless to say, I had to skip the trip and work on getting the new office ready, prepare the network for relocation, etc. 2 months later, we were moved in to the new space and did so without any major issues. Once I had the chance to sit down and get myself settled in to the new space, I realized how unhappy I was. Work was boring the hell out of me, and there was an overwhelming amount of it to do. I had to put my side projects on hold and never seemed to have any time for myself or anyone else. Any spare time I had was used to spruce up my resume.
Around 6 months later, things were improving. I had some new, interesting, projects going on at Latina and I was able to make more time for myself. I was still pretty swamped with work, but I was much happier. Several months went by, and things were great. I went back to the drawing board on ledouche and came up with the hand-etched flasks idea. The creative juices were flowing again and it felt good. I was even taking the time, literally dropping everything, to relax and be around friends and family.
Things really were good, until I had a bad moment at work. I was having one of those days where things were piling up from all sides. Those happen to everyone now and then, and I can usually deal with them, but that day was different. I had a moment of anger and unintentionally directed it towards a good friend. I said what I said, packed my bag and left the office. One of my buddies happened to be working from home that day so I decided a walk down to his place, from 59th street down to 13th, would give me the chance to clear my head and get myself back to normal. That was about 2 months ago, and she still hasn’t talked to me since. I’ve apologized several times, and have expressed how ashamed I am of myself for what I said, but it doesn’t seem to make any difference. Hopefully she’ll speak to me again, someday.
Fast forward to today, and things are great. Sadly, a day doesn’t go by when I don’t think about what a dick I was a couple of months ago, but I try not to dwell. There’s the promotion, I’m busy working on ledouche, and I’m keeping a really good balance between work and my personal life. Actually, the two of them bleed in to each other quite a bit, but it works out well. Overall, my health is good, but I may have to go under the knife soon for some preventative maintenance on the guts. I’ve also been boxing, only with exercise and stress relief in mind, for the past 6 weeks and I think it’s one of the best things I’ve ever decided to do. I work out with my heavy bag for about 30 minutes, and then ride my stationary bike for about an hour, 3-4 times a week. I’m feeling better, sleeping better and there’s a little extra room in those Fred Perry shirts I’ve stubbornly been wearing non-stop all summer. On top of all of that, there’s a Suburban Legends/The Aquabats/Reel Big Fish show in November! Can it get any better? Of course it can – just add some buckets! BUCKETS!
Ska can be baffling. It’s hard to believe that a genre that is so rich in cultural diversity, talent, and energy, can have such a lack of diversification in sound. Having grown up in the middle of the third wave, this was painfully evident. Sooner or later, everything sounds like Catch-22 and it’s time to move on to something else. Luckily, there are standouts that keep the genre alive and fresh, even if their music was released nearly 3 decades ago.
My buddy Rob and I recently celebrated our birthdays. He’s fucking old and turned 30. I turned 28. We originally planned on having our party at The Delancey like last year, but his dad came through and helped us rent out an entire bar on the lower east side for the evening and we even had full control of the music. Knowing it was our party, there was going to be some good tunes all night long.
This party was going to be so epic that it needed it’s own flyer. It could have used it’s own medical team, too.
One of the best parts of working in Times Square was the super easy to access to a lot of concerts. When I learned that Latina was moving to a new office space, outside of Times Square, I immediately realized that I probably wouldn’t be going to shows as often as I have been for the past few years. It’s not like it’s terribly inconvenient being a few subway stops away or anything, I’ll just have to pay attention to who is playing where from now on; No more walking down the street for lunch and seeing a schedule of shows.
Once I learned that Streetlight Manifesto was playing a show less than 2 blocks away from the office, I literally ran down 42nd Street to get tickets. I probably looked like a kid on Christmas morning while walking back to work, with a grin from ear to ear, knowing that the last show I’d catch while working in the area would be a great one…
Toots & The Maytals are playing over at B.B. King’s in Times Square in just over two weeks! I may have missed out on grabbing tickets for 311‘s show in the city this summer, but all of these other shows are totally making up for it.
Reel Big Fish’s performance was amazing, as expected. Their typical interweaving of humor and random banter during their performance kept everything moving at a swift pace. They started their set three separate times. The first was a failed (later to be revealed as scripted) attempt at a cover of A-Ha’s Take On Me, the second was a complete performance of the same song, and the third involved dimming the lights and running on to stage (as they did for both attempts at Take On Me), except they played Another Version Of You instead. I tried to explain it all to a coworker the next day, managed to confuse myself in the process, and ended up getting a Snickers bar instead.
Reel Big Fish and The English Beat are playing NY’s Nokia Theatre this Thursday evening.
I was practically tortured for going to RBF’s last local peformance, and neglecting to tell my friend Kat about the show, so she’ll be coming along this time. Hopefully she’ll totally forget about not going to their last show. I’ll be watching my back though, she’s sneaky and surprisingly strong.
Streetlight Manifesto played at a bar right in my neighborhood last Sunday. Their performance was amazing – much better than their performance at Roseland back in January, even with some technical difficulties. Being in a small venue, placing me less than 15 feet away from the stage even while being in the back of the performance area, made for a great view of the stage. I managed to get a few great clips to share with the World Wide Internets:
The Aquabats were recently released from their contract with Nitro Records. This is a huge disappointment, especially considering the amount of activity that has been coming from them over the past couple of years. There was the special one-year anniversary edition of Charge!!, Yo!, Check Out this Ride, Christian Jacobs’ involvement with Yo Gabba Gabba, The Aquabats Super Show, as well as a few club tours.
If they ever come to your town or anywhere nearby, go see them. You won’t regret it. Their live show is absolutely crazy, and it’s sometimes harder to tell just who is crazier – the band or their fans. I’ve seen people dressed up as spartans, Mr. T, huge banannas and other things at their shows.
Streetlight Manifesto/Reel Big Fish @ Roseland Ballroom
Wednesday, January 21st, 2009 //0 comments
Streetlight Manifesto and Reel Big Fish played in celebration of RBF’s new album at the Roseland Ballroom in NYC last night. I haven’t been to Roseland since 311 and Jimmie’s chicken shack played there back in 2000. It seemed a lot larger back then.
The opening act was Tip the Van. We didn’t make it in time to see their performance and were totally kicking ourselves after seeing 1/2 of the band get on stage and perform “She Has a Girlfriend Now” with Reel Big Fish. Tip the Van is an absolute must-see when they are back in the area.
I’ve never been all that in to Streetlight Manifesto, but that’s completely changed since last night. I had no idea they were as good as they are. I guess they’re just one of those bands I needed to see live. The sound in Roseland completely sucks, but their performance was still incredible. The four guys on the horns, especially their trumpet player, were great and always gave each other the chance to shine. I honestly don’t think I’ve seen musicians up on stage having as much fun as those guys were having last night. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any clips of their performance.
Reel Big Fish’s performance was awesome. There was so much energy in the room; everyone was dancing and having a good time. There was the occasional shoe or something being thrown around but hey, that’s the pool tax. If you’re gonna swim in the pool, there’s a price to pay. I’m just happy there weren’t any pants flying in the air or banannas being peeled like at the Aquabats show back in November!
They played a good mix of old songs and some of the covers off of their new album.
You can check out a bunch of additional videos on my Youtube channel.
Reel Big Fish closed the show with two great songs; Sell Out and a cover of A-Ha’s Take on Me. The only part of the night I regret is not being able to get further in to the crowd during RBF’s performance. Having spent the past 3 weeks in a knee brace, I figured I’d try not to do anything stupid and keep it off for a while.
All in all, this was one of the best concerts I’ve been to in the past couple of years. The crowd was huge, the music was great, and the overall vibe in the place was positive. I really hope that all of this is a sign of a resurgence of Ska. New Reel Big Fish album, The Aquabats are working on a new release, the Ska is Dead tour is going strong. What’s next? Maybe Obama will wear a checkered fedora hat while in office?
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome.
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