Tony Ricciardi

Thriller

Michael Jackson died tonight. He was 50 years old and the cause of death is still uncertain.
I have very mixed feelings tonight. He was truly an icon of my youth and his music was a big part of my childhood memories. I remember listening to my Thriller LP over and over on the record player.

As a dad, I have other feelings. The allegations and accusations of his involvement in child abuse still lingers around his legacy. Although never found guilty in court, the fact that he’s paid off several families is enough of an admission of guilt that I find it hard to be sad tonight.

Maybe time will wipe away the sordid details of his legal woes and his music will ultimately be the thing that he’s remembered by. Tonight however, he’s remembered as a man with immense talent and immense problems.

Crossroads

Today is June 21, 2009. It is my birthday but more importantly, it’s Father’s Day. This is the first time since becoming a Dad that the two have landed on the same day. It’s making me think a lot about what it means to be a father and how important that role is in my life. I can honestly say that there is nothing that I let get in the way of me being a good dad to my boys. Every decision I make is with them in mind. It’s hard to quantify love, but I can honestly tell you that my boys are at the top of the list.

Being a good father is important to me. My dad was always there for me and my sister when we needed him and he still is to this day. He’s a source of advice, guidance, support and love. I want my boys to have that same feeling about me. I want them to know that they can always come to me for whatever they need or want. For me, Father’s day isn’t so much about appreciating dad’s, but it’s more about how much I love being a father and how important my family is to me.

Singers and Songwriters

For about 5 years, I’ve had the Sirius Satellite Radio service. When I originally got it, my thinking was there was a huge number of stations with lots of content I would enjoy. I quickly realized the service was only useful to me for 3 items: Howard Stern, Live NFL Games, and Coffeehouse.

Sirius Coffeehouse is a station that describes itself as “Singers and Songwriters”. I describe it as someone went into my itunes library, picked out the songs that I listen to most and built a station around it. Essentially, Coffeehouse is the perfect station for my musical tastes. They somehow managed to create a station that combines acoustic guitar with piano-based songs and certain pop and classic tunes. They will mix together artists like Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd, Amy Winehouse, The Beatles and R.E.M. It’s easily the most eclectic blend of music I’ve ever heard and remarkably, exactly the artists I enjoy. I actually dropped my Sirius service a few months ago, but I am about to add the service again. I miss the Coffeehouse too much.

What if we give it away

Every so often I come across a song that I “re-discover”. Basically it’s a song that I may have loved at some point in my life and listened to over and over for a period of time. Eventually, I move on to another song and make that the center of my musical life for a period of time and so on.

About two days ago, I re-discovered one of those songs. I was listening to a station I created in Pandora and at some point in the afternoon it began playing What if we give it away by R.E.M.

The song was from the Life’s Rich Pageant album. It was a fairly successful album, but not a huge seller by any means. So to hear an obscure song from an obscure album was interesting. What was even more interesting was that I adored that song when I first heard it, but hadn’t really listened to it much over the years. As the song played in my Pandora player, I began to remember why I liked it so much. I’ve now been listening to the whole Life’s Rich Pageant album for the last few days and enjoying it thoroughly.

In this age of digital music and instant accessibility I find that I sometimes overlook songs or albums entirely. For example, a few weeks ago I was again listening to Pandora and they started playing a song by Belle and Sebastian. I liked the song so I immediately went to bit torrent some of their albums. Within 10 minutes I had their entire catalog in my iTunes library. Figuring I’d listen to it later, I went back to my Pandora and forgot about it. Years ago, that would never have happened. If I heard a song I liked, I would go to the local record store and buy the CD. I would get home, tear it open and start playing it. I’d almost certainly listen to the whole thing beginning to end and probably listen to it several times over the next few days. While  a part of me likes the speed and ease by which I can obtain music, another part of me misses that experience of going to a store and buying the CD as soon as it’s released. Another experience lost in the digital tradeoff.

Palm Reading

There’s been a lot of talk the last few days about the newly released Palm Pre and how it stacks up to the iPhone. I think the larger and more important conversation is whether or not the Pre can rescue Palm.

Prior to the iPhone, I had been a loyal Palm devotee going back to the original U.S. Robotics Palm Pilot. Remember those? I have owned almost every iteration of the Palm device since then. That ended with my Treo 750. Once I saw the iPhone, I lept and haven’t looked back. Till today.

I am intrigued by the Pre and what it’s possibilities are. What I’m more interested in however, is whether or not the Pre can save Palm from itself. Palm has long been a rudderless organization with seemingly no leadership or solid vision. They’ve trotted out the same old Palm OS for over 5 years now and have made minimal enhances to their hardware. The Pre represents the first radically different device Palm has introduced in over 10 years. Ultimately I believe that the success or failure of the Pre will be the success or failure of Palm as a company. Palm, along with their investors (Elevation Partners) has sunk an enormous amount of resources into the project.

It will certainly be an interesting case study for future generations. As the Pre hits store shelves and the hands of waiting consumers, how will Palm navigate the initial launch and subsequent highs and lows of the devices life-cycle.

Is the Pre the silver bullet that Palm needed to revitalize the company and return them to prominence in the handheld computing market, or will the Pre simply be a last ditch effort of a dying company as it breathes its last breath.

Stay tuned.