The TrueTalk Blog

And, We Just Keep Going...

Hard to explain why this is so powerful for me, except to say that it just is.

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Election Day on VloggerHeads

A sample of today's vlogs on VloggerHeads.

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Could You Take Four Years of...

A president who gets it?

Juan Enriquez Talks The TrueTalk

Pop!Tech is a very cool conference. I've been to three of them. I didn't make this year's, which was last week in Camden, Maine. I did watch several of the excellent presentations live via webstreaming.

I had not seen Juan Enriquez's special session until tonight, however. Enriquez is brilliant. I've seen him speak before at both Pop!Tech and TED. His accomplishments are substantial.

With that as background, carve out 30 minutes of your schedule sometime soon and watch this amazingly powerful, stark depiction of the current global economic crisis and Juan's clear recommendations about ways to recover from it and grow. The PowerPoint slides are also available for download on the Pop!Tech page.

Many thanks to Andrew Zolli for making this very special presentation available so extraordinarily quickly.

Juan Enriquez (2008) Pop!Tech Pop!Cast from PopTech on Vimeo.

Vloggers Having Fun

Several members of our VloggerHeads community got together to make a promotional video talking about why they like the site. What a cast of characters! If you're interested, come on over and see what they're talking about.

Many thanks to Dave a.k.a. Big Sexy for his great work!

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Bulletin: Talent Emerges If Given A Chance

You know, we're almost 13 weeks old at VloggerHeads. It has been the most amazing experience I've ever had. The whole story will have to wait for another time but the short version is: holy shit, what a ride. Of all the things that have come out of these first three months the biggest one for me is this: there is an incredible group of talented people out there who are just waiting for a place to stand up and show what they can do. Even after YouTube, American Idol and all the rest.

It's still early in the game.

Here's a vlogger who signed up on VloggerHeads very early on. She posted her first video on August 14, when we were just two weeks old. I'd never seen her before on YouTube but others knew her, which must mean she was on LiveVideo, where I had no presence at all. Anyway, I saw one of her videos (in which she depicts the crucifixion in a unique way) and that convinced me she was a pretty interesting person. She's posted 15 videos, each one better than the last...at least you think so, until you go back and watch the last!

You gotta go watch this woman's work.

For example, there's this one on our Front Page right now:

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Why Vlogging Connects People

In addition to lots of silliness, there have been plenty of serious vlogs posted on VloggerHeads during our first 12 weeks. Earlier this week, euthanasia arose as a topic. There were many thoughtful videos on the subject, but this one from George S. O'Brien made a very strong impression on me.

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What Makes A Great Vlog?

The answer to the question that makes up the title of this post is simple: a creative bit of material by a person who's real and engaging. Unique. Mendocello's video nails those requirements...and then some.

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Bobby Pope: January, 1958 - October 12, 2008

My nephew Bobby died on Sunday. He would have been 51 in January.

Bobby's mother married my brother when Bobby was 5 or so. He's been my nephew since then. I was always his "Uncle Tommy."

It wasn't always easy for Bobby. He was a raging kid; didn't much care for authority. But, luckily, he met Gina, another Long Island survivor, and fell in love. Turned out Gina's father was a pipefitter and got Bobby into the union. That seemed to do it for Bobby. He started working and never stopped; worked his ass off. That was about 23 years ago.

Bobby and Gina had four kids. Three boys and then, finally, a girl. Unfortunately, the girl had severe cerebral palsy. Really severe. She's around 16 now, can't take care of herself, and requires constant care. Tough stuff.

On November 7, 2005, Bobby and Gina's oldest child, Bob Jr., was patrolling some meaningless road in Southern Baghdad. An IED exploded. Bob was killed instantly. Of course, Bobby and Gina were crushed. We all were. Not much to say, really, except how sorry we were.

When Karen, my wife, heard that Bobby had died on Sunday, she said, "he's been despondent since Little Bob died..." Yup.

I always thought Bobby was a dead ringer for Tom Waits; same gravelly sensibility, too. I always thought of Bobby when I saw Waits.

This is one of my favorite Tom Waits songs, for Bobby.

The bats are in the belfry
the dew is on the moor
where are the arms that held me
and pledged her love before
and pledged her love before

Chorus

It's such a sad old feeling
the fields are soft and green
it's memories that I'm stealing
but you're innocent
when you dream
when you dream
you're innocent
when you dream

running through the graveyard
we laughed my friends and I
we swore we'd be together
until the day we died
until the day we died

Repeat Chorus

I made a golden promise
that we would never part
I gave my love a locket
and then I broke her heart
and then I broke her heart

Just When You Thought You'd Heard Everything

You get arch-Conservative Weekly Standard founder and Editor William Kristol writing an op-ed piece in this morning's New York Times that begins with this line: "It's time for John McCain to fire his campaign." He then goes on to say the following:

He has nothing to lose. His campaign is totally overmatched by Obama’s. The Obama team is well organized, flush with resources, and the candidate and the campaign are in sync. The McCain campaign, once merely problematic, is now close to being out-and-out dysfunctional. Its combination of strategic incoherence and operational incompetence has become toxic.

I'll only make this point. Presidential campaigns are headed up by people who aspire to become the nation's chief executive. Often the manner in which those campaigns are strategized, organized and executed is the only glimpse of the person's executive ability that voters have. In the case of these two senators, it is the only example. Suggesting that the problem lies with "the campaign" instead of with its leader is a little like suggesting the board should have fired every H-P employee instead of realizing Carly Fiorina was not the right executive to make the company profitable. As for Mr. Kristol, can you imagine what his column would have sounded like if the two candidates' "campaigns" were in opposite straits?