Q&A: Los Amigos Invisibles

I've learned about much of the world through people who have been places and done things I have no notion of.  My appetite for the culturally diverse touches upon all aspects of my life, music in particular.  So when I was offered a chance to do a Q&A with Los Amigos Invisibles lead man Jose Luis Pardo (known better in some circles as DJ Afro), I gladly accepted.  As with all good subjects, there is far more to Jose and Los Amigos than can be captured in a short Q&A.

Read the interview at National Geographic.

Stage Two

The Second Stage Theater is neatly wedged between a tony pre-war residential and a corner bodega, one avenue west of the south end of Times Square and a few blocks from midtown Manhattan's world-renowned theater district.  The equally tony pairs of 50-and-over Anglo-Saxons and brown-skinned twenty-somethings waiting outside the building and in the "efficiency-sized" lobby had eschewed tonight's tourist traps for a local favorite. Anna Deavere Smith, penned "the ultimate impressionist" by the New York Times, was performing Let Me Down Easy.  "It's a one woman play recreating interviews on wellness and spirituality," recited the usher.  The monologue successfully personalized the normally polarizing issue of healthcare by re-examining how vastly different real-life interview subjects rode with the peaks and valleys of life, death, success, and vulnerability.

Q&A: Marcellus “Dat Dude” Wiley

I  interviewed NFL retiree and ESPN analyst Marcellus "Dat Dude" Wiley for an article published nearly a year ago.  It was one of my favorites, but the the actual Q&A was too long to make it to print with the profile.....

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Former NFL Pro Bowler and current ESPN analyst Marcellus “Dat Dude” Wiley explains why transitioning into TV journalism starts with being a good interviewee as a player, becomes opportunity when excelling in the moment, and blossoms when preparation for each broadcast is taken as seriously the practice leading up to game day.

Nokware Knight:

In another interview, you said you ended up on ESPN by happenstance.  You got invited to a couple of shows as a guest and they liked how you appeared on camera, and things went from there.  So what is the difference between you and the average player?  How did you get chosen and why?

Marcellus Wiley:

You’re right.  I did get on the show through everything short of divine intervention because I wasn’t expecting to make this a career move or a career choice, but I was doing the interviews.  I remember a specific interview when it was Halloween and I was in LA.  And as a player, you’re pretty naïve to how things work in the media structure and in the corporate world and how they’re evaluating pretty much everything you do.  Little did I know that that interview would spark a lot of interest in me as a talent, as an NFL analyst because of how I performed in interviews.

Read These, Speak Easy, Live Well

I've recently dwindled the hundred or so books I owned down to about a dozen.  Most of those that remained, particularly my non-fiction titles, were some of the ones I've owned the longest. Three of those non-fiction titles made so much sense, were so clear in their directions, simple in their message, entertaining, and were so relevant to my everyday life that I now consider them a mandatory once-a-year read.

Timothy Ferisses' 4-Hour Work Week, William Zinsser's On Writing Well (widely considered a classic), and Suzanne Bates' Speak Like a CEO all center around three premises:  1) Life is priority, 2) Communication is key, and 3) Direction is necessary.

They have been particularly important for me, a full-time businessman, freelance writer, and culture and music enthusiast who can't seem to find enough time in the day for much else.  But they are very much applicable to anyone who wants to make something of themselves and actually have a life at the same time.  Speak Like A CEO considers the importance of the words you say, On Writing Well will help you sound better on paper or in person, and the 4-Hour Workweek will help you reprioritize your own life and interests, so that you have more to speak of than what you do for a living.

She Loves You For Your Parents

In discussing how she and her current boyfriend met, an acquaintence let me on to what I thought was an unusual but sensible gauge for whether the man she was dating was for her: his parents. Her biggest concern wasn't whether she liked her beau's folks or vice versa. Since she was looking for a committed relationship herself, she wanted to get an idea of what kind of message was portrayed about love and marriage to her boyfriend through the first example of a relationship he ever knew (and likely the only one he's seen up so close for so long). Did they stay together from his birth until now, or go through some form of separation or divorce? She had come to the conclusion that men raised by parents who stick it out in the long term consider marriage permanent and take relationships more seriously than those whose parents have parted ways, as the children of divorcees always "see a way out," as she puts it.

When I thought it over I had to agree. Of the five divorced couples I know, at least four included a husband or wife who were raised by parents who were divorced, married, separated, or had children with a different mother or father before them. But nearly all the people I knew whose parents never had a real relationship to begin with spent a lot of time in long-term monogamous relationships. I neither had the time nor energy to explore whether this "trend" has any relevance beyond my inner circle. But it has made me wonder how many women I've gained or lost due to what they saw in my own parents, and consider the importance of getting to know my significant other's old folks for reasons more substantial than my own self-security.