OTAS, you found it

With all the hoopla about having settled, most of the people who know me know that’s a crock of shit. New York, for all its glory, seems to try to squeeze every dime out of me. And the latest is the rent increase from my landlord has thrown me over the edge. Perhaps another rent increase wouldn’t be so bad if I haven’t spent the last year mouse-proofing my apartment, settling in, and dealing with living all the way on the Upper East Side. Another 10% is ridiculous. So I’m in the market for something else.

People who know me are usually shocked that I live uptown. Is it that I’m “cool”, “trendy”, or any of that bull shit? I’m not, relative to my fellow New Yorkers, I’m certainly not. The reality is that I’m gay and most of us don’t live on the UES. But I’ve never cared –that much – to fit in to the “scene” and didn’t care to spend $3 grand for a broker so I settled here in the UES.

But that’s all changed now. I think I’m going to find something smaller downtown, or something similar in Brooklyn, to save money on rent. And between that and the decrease in cab fare that I’ll have to pay when coming home drunk, this is a prudent thing to do.

All the bull shit about my new job aside, things seem to have settled in my life. The job is reasonable, and with these last couple of job changes I’m making the kind of money that I’m probably going to be at for a little while. So I’m left to have the time to reflect on me –what other things outside of work I can make better.

The first thing to do is to know what I want, which for me is something I think the last couple of years has given me some confidence in. The second is that I have the time and energy to do it, which I now do. Now this may sound like bull shit, and some probably is, but it’s time to share make some effort in getting out there and knowing people.

What am I doing about it?

Let’s just say it’s gay pride weekend and I’m at home on a Saturday night. So I’ve not made too much progress on that front. But as I write now, I’m trying to plot something out. I’m getting a little sick of going out to the same clubs, meeting the same people, and having the same outcome. (Someone once told me that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome.)

I don’t look a gift horse in the mouth: I’ve made dear friends doing just that. But now I have to do some things that deviate from the norm. Going out from time to time, taking some chances, and exploring new venues.

I’ll keep you posted. We’ll see how these new ventures go. I’m not 100% sure what they all will look like but for the time being it’s going to include some more non-club activities such as joining some sort of sports league, continuing to pursue special groups of people in things I’m interested, especially the opera, and making sure there’s enough variation in what I do to at least make it possible.

“There is variation in everything. Variation creates all the interesting outcomes.” Lalith, a wise professor has hold me. He’s right. But I don’t want to make this whole effort antiseptic. It will be what I’m interested in, with the types of people I want to be with, and on my terms. At my age, that’s the only way anything new is going to happen.

Fortune favors the bold. I have to be more so.

While I would like to think I do nothing but rub elbows with fashion’s elite, the day-to-day activities of my job are not so glamorous. I have more management responsibilities here and the boss is not all that impressed with the people that work for me (she’s not too wide the mark on a couple of them, and she warned me of this). I’m getting pressure to increase the quality of their work.

At the end of the day I’m expected to have some fact-based insights on our customer portfolio with this team. The data warehouse is totally fucked and navigating it requires some teeth extraction. But I’m getting my sea legs, knowing the people, and have begun to get into the job.

To make a long story short, I’m beginning to be a bitch to the people that work for me. I’m getting sick of the lack of progress and their misinterpretations of my advice. At the end of the day, I think some are lazy. My sweet side has turned. They don’t realize that if they worked with me I would be their greatest ally: Alas, they have chosen the path of pain.

The glamorous world of fashion has turned, for the most part, to be business. Who is buying Chanel, Diane von Furstenberg, Juicy, and Versace? How can they appeal to customers? How can they increase sales? I’ve had a chance to meet many of the designers. Some, more down to earth (Diane) and some more out there (Versace), to answer this question.

At the end of the day they are all interested in how they can increase sales volume through trying to understand their customers more. What types of people buy these things? How much do they make? Do they go on-sale to improve sales? What are the long-term effects? And with me, the question is: How can they do make better decisions through analytics and economics?

That’s the ugly side of fashion. These designers have a rather expensive shop to maintain, and so do we. Having stores in on Fifth Avenue, Madison Ave., and in every glamorous place in the world costs at lot. What can they do to maintain their reputation without having selling out? High prices come with a need to be less myopic. Do you ever go on sale? Should you distribute yourselves through the luxury retailers or in more pedestrian places?

The answer is clear. Keep the prices high. Keep the distribution through luxury, and never go on sale (unless you have a shitty season).

We are selling self-esteem, here. Creating a class of people and a sense of elitism.

After a lifetime of studying labor issues, I find myself in the world of signaling and consumer analytics. What is the value of “feeling fashionable” what is the value of self-esteem through things? I’m finding it’s pretty damn high. It’s fascinating.

New York never ceases to amaze me: Last night I went out to Café Taci, where you can not only enjoy a fine Italian dinner, but also listen to live opera. Singing from armatures ? I expected someone squeaking out and killing the great arias. Nope. These people easily sung in deafening volume (without mics, of course) the great arias.

One dramatic soprano sung Mozart arias from “Cosi fan Tutte” and “the Marriage of Figaro” with ease. And another sang famed arias from Grounod’s “Faust”. Tenors sang Puccini nailing every note in full voice; there was even a moment where three tenors belted out the famed Italian aria “O Sole Mio” to a huge ovation

It made me realize the fine line between someone trained in the art and the famed singers at the Metropolitan Opera. Volume, of course, must be there – they must sing above a full orchestra to fill a 4,000 seat auditorium. The Met has crushed many a great sopranos with its sheer size.

But it was at towards the end of the night when someone sang the first aria on “The Magic Flute” that I realized one big difference. To those that don’t know the opera, the Queen of the Night has two fiendishly difficult arias (and her only arias). She must climb up to several high Fs. Singing with beautiful runs and rolandes we were all biting our teeth when approacking that F. She cracked it.

That is the difference between the Met and the students. At the Met that note is hit in every performance.

But who knows. With a 10 more years of training, she may be the next Callas, Sills, or something along those lines. This music, dead for some time now, lives and breaths with vibrancy today.