Autopsis

Another high power, low cost SBC: Beagle Bone Black

I just received a Beagle Bone Black, which is being used for prototype development for an open-hardware, open-software M2M project we are sponsoring.

Following are some photos of the board and a group shot with a few of its peers in the market, along with the basic specs of each board.

Group shot of some of the low-cost Single Board Computers (SBC) available:

Clockwise, beginning UL:

• APC from Via Technologies

The APC is still sold, but has been joined by an up-rated board that has more capability:

• DB9 CAN terminator provided for scale
  
• Standard credit card form factor provided for scale
  
• Gizmo board – 52 GigaFlops 

•  Raspberry Pi

•  Beagle Board Black

Tags: APC, APC Rock, BBB, Beagle Bone Black, Gizmo, Gizmosphere, Raspberry Pi, RasPi, RPi, SBC, single board computers, Via Technologies

Posted in Gear, Sci / Tech | No Comments »

Raspberry Pi vs APC, Round One

The Intro: 

After nine months of anticipation, a Raspberry Pi arrived yesterday. It arrived on the same day and in the same UPS truck as a Via Technologies APC. Both had been eagerly awaited by the market in general and me.

I have specific ideas about where things are headed with computing and how technology will be manifested in everyday life. These little, low-cost computers represent a part of that vision, so I want to get to know them, and their capabilities, up close and personal. I want to know exactly how much these small units of local computing can do so that I can more accurately anticipate aspects of the near future.

The Raspberry Pi is a project by a non-profit foundation from the UK. Its purpose is to introduce computers and computer science to young children. The goal is to get kids back into programming, and in this case, programming meaning typing in text and running programs from a command line.

The Via Technologies APC has an equally noble mission: to bring the internet to the 5 out of 7 billion people in the world who can’t access it now. Their view is that the Personal Computer has not evolved to match the changes in the overall technology environment. They see less of a post-PC world and more of a cloud-based world, with a variety of devices fronting the cloud, including, of course, very low-cost personal computers that still use a keyboard and a mouse.

You can learn more about the Raspberry Pi here:  http://www.raspberrypi.org/

You can learn more about the APC at their web site here:  http://apc.io/

You  you can see the APC in action at its TED launch here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snVFAf4DHEw&feature=player_embedded

Both the Raspberry Pi and the APC are open source software projects, meaning the software is shared and publicly available to anyone who wants to replicate or modify it. The RasPi is also an open source hardware project, meaning its hardware designs, schematics, etc. are also publicly available.

The success of each of these products will depend in large part on the size and sustained enthusiasm of their user communities. The Raspberry Pi currently has a vast  lead in this area with a rapidly expanding installed base that is on track to be multiple millions of units along with highly technically capable early adopters who provide support via community forums, etc. The RasPi has been building community and momentum for at least a year and is attracting a solid core of committed believers in the cause.

The APC  is much newer to the market and lacks the purity of non-profit purpose, the underdog “born in the UK” heritage and the “back to our roots” origin story of the RasPi. The APC is also in a much more transient position in the market. The APC perception of the market and where it’s headed may be exactly correct, but their operating system (OS) of choice, Android, is the world’s most popular mobile device OS. That may sound like a good thing to you, but what it means to Via Technologies is that factories in China will be pumping out ever-more-powerful and ever-lower-cost Android based systems every month. Even today, you can buy a sub-$100 Android tablet, pry it open, remove the mother board, and have more performance and much more capability for similar cost of an APC. For an example, see: http://www.androidauthority.com/gooseberry-arm-board-android-raspberry-pi-102881/

While the RasPi has probably carved out a defensible position in the marketplace, it will be much more challenging for APC to create and sustain barriers to competitive entry into their segment. The RasPi can defend its position via its unassailable moral high ground and sanctity of mission, if nothing else. APC has no unique technology or other barrier to competitive entry. The APC team has only a product, which can, and will be, swept aside by the next bright shiny tech object in its category.

Of the two products, I am very enamored by the RasPi’s size and price point while I am convinced that APC’s vision reflects the near- to mid-term computing future of multiple device types front-ending the cloud.

Of the two approaches, I’ve been disassembling and assembling computers and software since 1979, so I understand the desire of the RasPi team to re-introduce those fundamentals to children. I also understand the enthusiasm and passion of the RasPi community as they rally around this cause and push this little board to its limits and beyond to see just what can be done with it.  I also know that children today are not the kids who were booting up Commodore 64s in the early days of the microprocessor. There’s a different set of expectations now, especially around what it takes to make something work.

Each of these products has been designed and built to accomplish a specific goal, to advance a specific agenda, to manifest a particular destiny. They are not the same goals and they are similar, but not the same products. But, because they are close enough in price point, architecture and market timing, comparisons are inevitable.

This series of posts will be one of those comparisons, but it will be done not just head-to-head, feature-to-feature, but will be done measuring each of these products against its own criteria, its own metrics of success, within its own context.

In the U.S., you can buy the Raspberry Pi at: MCM Electronics http://www.mcmelectronics.com/ A good source for accessories and add-ons is: Adafruit http://www.adafruit.com/

The APC is available at: NewEgg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813181041&Tpk=13-181-041

Here’s what they look like, side by side (click image to enlarge):

The RasPi is on the left. The SD is a standard size SD card for scale.

The Unboxing:

It was actually really fun to pull these out of the box. Considering how many great, complex, high-end and very expensive things I’ve unboxed in my life, it’s ironic that I had so much fun pulling out these $35 and $49  computers.

I bought the starter package from MCM for the RasPi. It includes a USB mouse, compact USB keyboard, RasPi 1.0 amp / 5VDC power supply, a *non-powered* USB hub, the RasPi board and a 4GB SD card pre-loaded with a special build of the Linux Desbian operating system made specifically for the RasPi.

The RasPi requires a *powered* USB hub, so the USB hub included in this starter pack was worthless. You’ll spend about as much for a powered USB hub as you will for the RasPi itself. The rest of the components were OK, and made the “get it going” process quick.

Note that if you buy just the RasPi, it will *not* include a power supply. You’ll need a standard micro USB 5VDC mobile phone charger that puts out at least 1.0 amps to power the RasPi.

The APC box consisted  of the board, the included power supply and a faceplate for a NeoITX/MiniITX/MicroATX enclosure.

The Booting:

I’d been waiting for the RasPi since last December, when I first learned of the project, so I turned my attention to it first. The SD card receiver is mounted on the bottom side of the circuit board and the SD card containing the OS extends outside the perimeter of the board when inserted. Next came the keyboard and mouse USB cables, network cable and the HDMI video cable. When you’ve got everything plugged in, the RasPi itself looks lost among all the cables.

The $35 Raspberry Pi plugged in and powered up. Connectors, clockwise from bottom: HDMI, Micro USB power, SD card with OS, composite video, audio, status LEDs, USB 2.0, RJ45 Ethernet 100mbs (I’ll cover the IO pins on the board in a future post)

I plugged in the power supply cable and was greeted by a solid red power-on LED and a series of blinking lights from the network. The green disk access light also flickered.

But, unfortunately, nothing appeared on the monitor. I won’t bore you with the details, but what ensued was several hours of Google searches, reading forum posts, wiki entries and blog posts and otherwise tracking down the obscure command lines required to troubleshoot the problem.

You can read the results of that effort here: http://pastebin.com/nBWCUTN6 My forum post in the troubleshooting section of the RasPi forum is here: http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=16626 There’s no response yet, but it’s late in the UK, where most of the expertise is currently centered.

While I could get video via the composite video RCA connector, nothing was coming out of the HDMI jack.

Bottom line: No Joy

Having no luck with the RasPi, I turned my attentions to the APC.

I plugged the mouse and keyboard USB cables into the APC, plugged the included power supply’s cable into the board and then pressed the tiny “power” button.

Within seconds the APC logo and “a bicycle for your mind” tag line appeared on the monitor. A few seconds later the APC was up and running and I was looking at the opening background and search bar. I was up, running and online.

Joy.

A fully functional computer with more than 400,000 apps available, as well as the power and resources of the cloud only one click away.

For $49.

APC’s Android browser displaying the APC web site.

The $49 APC plus some stuff you’ve got lying around yields a fully functional front-end to the cloud, plus whichever of the 400k available apps you’d like to run locally.

Note that for some fields of endeavor Angry Birds is a perfectly legitimate productivity tool. 

I’ll save the comparisons of what happens post-boot for next time, after I get the RasPi fixed or replaced.

Until then,

The Score:

RasPi –  0

APC – 1

If you’re interested in this type of thing, check out these alternatives:

• http://www.zdnet.com/photos/missed-out-on-raspberry-pi-herere-five-alternatives/6351193#photo
• http://www.pcworld.com/article/256349/six_piping_hot_raspberry_pi_alternatives.html
• http://www.tomshardware.com/news/ODROID-X-Raspberry-Pi-Quad-Core-Buy-Online,16293.html
• http://www.techworld.com.au/article/425427/alternatives_raspberry_pi_can_get_right_now/

Tags: APC, cloud, computing, internet of things, M2M, Raspberry Pi

Posted in Sci / Tech | 2 Comments »

Apple’s Steve Jobs on Stealing Great Ideas

Here’s Steve Jobs talking about stealing other people’s inventions:

Excerpt: “We … have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.”

Steve Jobs and Apple stole the mouse and graphical user interface (GUI) from Xerox PARC and marketed them as the little-known Lisa and the well-known Macintosh.

Bill Gates and Microsoft stole the mouse and the GUI from Apple and marketed them as the Windows operating system.

The mouse and the GUI were great ideas. They created personal computing as we know it.

But, they were invented by the guys at Xerox PARC, not by Steve Jobs and not by Apple.

Apple is a company that was built on the theft of others’ ideas and inventions and the glorification and deification of the theft of others’ ideas and inventions. (see video above)

It is infinitely hypocritical for Apple to now claim to be the white knight protectors of “values” related to not stealing others ideas.

Apple is a former client. I developed applications for Apple and wrote code for their systems. We have owned and currently own Apple products.

As such, it is tragic to see them now invest and innovate primarily  in the courtroom rather than the marketplace.

In that sense, yes, it is all about values. Just the wrong ones.

Learn more by reading: Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age http://www.amazon.com/Dealers-Lightning-Xerox-PARC-Computer/dp/0887309895

Tags: Apple, Stdve Jobs, Stealing

Posted in Sci / Tech | No Comments »

Reddy Kilowatt

Here’s another closing of the circle.

Steph went pickin’ with our sister-in-law, Michele, last Saturday.

One of the things she found at the various antique and “treasure” shops they visited was the book Advertising Character Collectibles by Warren Dotz.

In the book she came across the entry for Reddy Kilowatt, a mascot used by the electrical utility industry.

I grew up with the Reddy Kilowatt.

We had Reddy Kilowatt ashtrays.

My grandfather wore a Reddy Kilowatt lapel pin on his suit.

Reddy went to church every Sunday with gramps.

Reddy was part of my early life, but faded away in the early 70′s.

I never knew where he came from or what became of him, until now.

Another circle closed.

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The Trackpoint Story

Most of us use computers and other technological devices every day.

Most of us never give a passing thought to where that technology came from, who thought of it, who developed it, who engineered it and who brought it to the market.

Sometimes, you come across those stories and they close a circle for you.

This was one of those times.

I’m a touch typist. my fingers never leave the home row of keys, just like Mr. Niemeyer taught me back in high school typing class. When I signed up for that class, it was because it was filled with girls. As it turned out, I would not have been equipped for every career I’ve had after commercial photography if I hadn’t been able to type. Thank you, Mr. Niemeyer.

Since learning how to type, I went on to write some books and countless numbers of white papers, proposals, contracts, articles, columns, blog posts, missives, long letters and, as my long suffering friends will testify, multi-thousand word emails.

Since shortly after its introduction in 1992, I’ve written most of those kazillions of words on keyboards that feature a Trackpoint, a small isometric joystick nestled between the G, H and B keys. It functions as a mouse, and allows me to move the cursor without moving my fingers from the keyboard.

That may not sound like much, but it adds up. The original studies of human computer interface showed that it takes, on average, 0.7 seconds to move your hand to the mouse and get oriented and 0.9 seconds to move your hand back from the mouse to the keyboard and get oriented. It’s probably the German blood in me, but I cringe at the thought of wasting 1.6 seconds every time I need to move the cursor or make a selection. For a long time, I wasn’t the only one, as Trackpoints were a popular input device for many years.

Invented and brought to market by IBM, Trackpoints have appeared on laptops and desktop keyboards from a variety of manufacturers including, HP, Toshiba, Sony, Fujitsu and Dell, all of whom used different trade names for the device.

These days, with the rise of the cursed touchpad, it’s getting harder and harder to find devices with Trackpoints, especially in stand-alone keyboards.

I’ve been using an old, refurbished IBM Trackpoint keyboard for years. When we returned in 2009 and I set up this office, I bought two from a vendor on EBay, and this morning, the second one bit the dust. (That should give you some idea of how much I write, to go through two IBM desktop keyboards, which are legendary for both key feel and durability.)

So, this morning, I began another quest to find a detached, desktop keyboard with a Trackpoint. An EBay search turned up only beige, which will not work with my esthetics or with my otherwise black gear.

A Google search turned up a plaintive, pleading post from a fellow Trackpoint pilgrim, seeking a source for exactly what I was looking for. One of the responses pointed me to Unicomp, which is a company built on the former IBM and Lexmark people and technologies that manufactured the legendary IBM keyboards. When I hit the web site and saw that their logo included a Trackpoint, I knew I was among My People.

Unicomp is located in Lexington, Kentucky, and all of their products are built and shipped from there. How amazing is that? A computer product that is still produced in the U.S.

But, even though Unicomp sells brand new exact replacements for any IBM keyboard ever made, sells brand new Trackpoint keyboards and will make you a brand-new custom keyboard for any language, key layout, etc., that was not my greatest discovery this morning.

My Google search also turned up an amazing first-person history of the Trackpoint, by the man who conceived it, invented it and guided it through the global IBM bureaucracy to market: Ted Selker.

The story is here, and even if you don’t care anything about the Trackpoint, it is a fascinating story of how innovation happens and does or does not make it to market inside massive, multinational corporations.

For me, the history of the Trackpoint closed a circle. It provided the back-story on a little piece of technology that has been a big part of my life and my writing for two decades.

If you are open to it, and you watch for it, life is like that; it will close the open circles and provide answers for questions you didn’t even know you had.

* * * * * * *

Typing class at Adel Community High School was almost as good as Theater class for girl:boy ratio. I took them both.

Me, starring as Prince Albert, singing a solo to Margie Walston, in the role of Anne, in our high school production of “The Princess and the Pea.”

As to my finely crafted plan of getting girls via theater class, Margie ended up marrying one of my best friends, Pete King. Prior to moving to Adel, Pete grew up in, of all places, Lexington, Kentucky, home to IBM, and now, Unicomp, keyboard manufacturing.

* * * * *

Larry Niemeyer has been National Coach of the Year in both softball and basketball. He’s also in state and national Halls of Fame in the two sports. He has the most wins of any high school softball coach ever, anywhere. He’s the only coach in high school history to win championships in four sports.

Here’s how he ended up in Adel:

“I had an interview for a job in Geneseo, Ill., but I didn’t get it,” he says. “So I interviewed at Adel. The job there meant teaching six subjects and running the school newspaper.

“I wasn’t really thinking about the coaching. But the job paid $4,000 a year, and they gave me an extra 200 bucks to coach girls basketball. I’d never even seen a girls basketball game (it was six-on-six then).”

Now a flourishing suburb of Des Moines, Adel back then was just a tiny dot on the map.

“I remember the first game I coached was against Valley of West Des Moines. I had cotton mouth so bad I couldn’t talk,” he says. “We were 2-17 that first year, then 5-15 the next year. After that, we never had a losing year in the 18 years I was at Adel.”

You can learn more about Mr. Niemeyer here.

* * * * *

The Trackpoint has been used on a wide variety of computers under an assortment of brand names.

I’ve personally used it in IBM, Sony, Fujitsu and Dell products. It’s one of the primary reasons I currently use a Dell Latitude.

From the Wikipedia Pointing Stick entry:

Posted in Sci / Tech | 2 Comments »

1928 Prices compared to 2012 Prices

My friend, Lauren Hillquist, sent me this postcard via email today:

1928 CAR REPAIR MAILER.
AUTOMOTIVE REPAIR ADVERTISEMENT IN 1928… SENT ON A PENNY POSTCARD

(click on image for full size)

He also included this text:

May 31, 1927, the last Ford Model T rolled off the assembly line. It was the first affordable automobile, due in part to the assembly line process developed by Henry Ford. It had a 2.9-liter, 20-horsepower engine and could travel at speeds up to 45 miles per hour. It had a 10-gallon fuel tank and could run on kerosene, petrol, or ethanol, but it couldn’t drive uphill if the tank was low, because there was no fuel pump; people got around this design flaw by driving up hills in reverse.

Ford believed that “the man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed.” The Model T cost $850 in 1909, and as efficiency in production increased, the price dropped. By 1927, you could get a Model T for $290.

I thought it would be interesting to compare those prices with today’s, so I put together a quick spreadsheet comparing Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation adjusted prices and some actual market price data.

Here’s the result (click on image for full size):

As a modern car parts comparison, I just paid $34.41 for one of three pieces that make up the tailgate hinge on a 2003 GMC pickup. All three tailgate hinge pieces totaled $56.68. That’s just for one side of the tailgate.

Note that if car part prices had risen in step with the CPI, like cheese, tea, aspirin and soap did, I could have nearly bought an entire fender for our pickup for what I paid for a tailgate hinge.

You’ll note that incomes are more than double the rate of CPI inflation. Most of that extra money apparently goes for servicing the debt on big ticket items such as homes (~4x) and cars (>2x) that have inflated in cost relatively much more than the things that drive the CPI such as foodstuffs and household supplies.

As many have noted, the recent bubble in the U.S. was centered on inflated home values, so it may be that relative to other things in the economy, there is still downward adjustment remaining in housing costs.

It is interesting that automobiles have increased in relative cost more than other consumer material goods. Given the labor component in their manufacture, some portion of that can be attributed to the ~2x higher median household income. On average, around 24 hours of labor are required to manufacture a modern automobile, less than half the time required only a couple of decades ago. Production line labor costs range from around $50 to $70 per hour, including benefits, depending on the manufacturer and the plant location.

In 1914 Henry Ford caused a sensation when he instituted $5 per day in wages and a 40 hour week. His goal was to reduce turnover, then running 300%, and he succeeded in that goal.

Since then, the amount of labor required to produce and assemble an automobile has decreased dramatically, yet the price of an automobile, and certainly its parts, have increased significantly more than other consumer goods.

Sources:

http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

http://www.hemmings.com/hcc/stories/2005/08/01/hmn_feature18.html

http://www.census.gov/const/uspricemon.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford

http://trade.gov/static/Motor%20Vehicles%20Industry%20Assessment%202010%20rev5.pdf

http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2011/10/top-10-cheapest-new-cars-you-can-buy.html/10

https://www.usps.com/ship/service-chart.htm?

http://www.candyfavorites.com/wrigley-s-spearmint-chewing-gum

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/story/2012-02-09/income-rising/53033322/1

https://www.google.com/search?q=Women%27s+leather+handbag+&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a#q=Women%27s+leather+handbag&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=lE0&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&prmd=imvns&source=univ&tbm=shop&tbo=u&sa=X&ei=2obgT5W1AeOG2gW33ZWyCg&ved=0CIsBEK0E&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=99041146c6b93478&biw=1920&bih=949

https://www.google.com/search?q=cheddar+cheese&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a#q=cheddar+cheese&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=3sK&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&prmd=imvnse&source=univ&tbm=shop&tbo=u&sa=X&ei=lobgT6XEJY642QX_2Y2WCg&ved=0CJcBEK0E&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=99041146c6b93478&biw=1920&bih=949

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=Rawlings+Junior+baseball+glove&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=14569235278200796830&sa=X&ei=p4PgT62UBMXs2QXmpP2hCg&ved=0CJMBEPMCMAM

Posted in Econ / Finance | No Comments »

The Crossroads and the Compass

7 April 2012

We don’t ride as much as we used to.

That’s not a good thing, but it’s just the way it’s been for the last few years.

We’ve been focused on adjusting to being back here in the U.S. and other aspects of life.

So, we haven’t been riding as much as we used to.

But, Saturday, Steph was up for a ride.

There are not many who would turn that down, and I am not among them.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: crossroads, Elgin, railroad, tracks

Posted in Travel | 8 Comments »

This Year’s Annual SXSWi Survival Guide

It’s that time again.

For all the SXSW rookies or those who can’t clearly remember what they experienced at last year’s Geek Bacchanalia, here’s this year’s guide to SXSW Interactive survival and success:

• When you’re here, always call it “south by.” If people don’t know what you’re talking about, they are not people you want to talk to anyway.
• SXSW started as a music festival. It’s still a festival. It is *NOT* a tech or business conference. Approach it like ‘Spring Break for Geeks’ and you’ll have the right mindset.
• SXSW is about relationships, old and new, and soaking up the scene.
• All the action @ the convention center is in the hallways.
• Don’t book yourself back-to-back-to-back in sessions. Instead, hit a few that are super-relevant to what you do, attend at least one keynote so you can say you went to one, but spend the majority of your time meeting people and interacting with them.
• For a session you for-sure want to attend, be outside the door at least one hour before that session starts. Don’t worry about the wait. Some of the best connections and conversations you’ll have will be in line waiting for a session.
• Most of the real innovative thought and “what’s next” will happen in the tiny meeting rooms in the hotels five blocks from the convention center (the show is about 3x larger than Austin can accommodate, so sessions are in hotels all over town)
• Stay flexible and be ready to change your plans instantly. Serendipity rewards flexibility and spontaneity at SX (no, that’s not a typo, that’s your chance to practice saying “south by”).
• Be ready for 18 hours of continuous, heavy phone use. Bring extra batteries or an external, rechargeable power source.
• Don’t get too hyped up about anybody you meet or connect with. Almost *nobody* follows-up after SXSW. If you want to sustain a relationship or connection, it will be on you to do it.
• Try to spend at least 15 to 30 minutes a day watching the scene and immersing yourself in the energy at different locations:

• Charging station @ the convention center
• Hilton main lobby
• Hilton 4^th floor lobby (startup accelerator)
• Vendor/brand reception/party (too many to begin to comprehend until you witness it for yourself)
• Local club/bar (best scene is not 6^th street, seek out the other areas of downtown for more interesting interactions)

And, very important:

• Pace yourself. Drink a lot of fluids. Load up on “Airborne” every morning to ward off the exotic mix of worldwide germs. There is no shortage of parties, receptions and general festivity. It’s a long show. Save some energy for the last days.
• Bring lots of business cards. For all its techiness, it’s still a physical business card show.

[edit: added need for 18 hours of phone power]

[great additional points in the comments on this post]

Posted in Sci / Tech, Travel | 1 Comment »

One girl’s year in LA: 2011

This is a wonderful year’s diary of a girl’s 2011 in LA, a few seconds at a time.

I think it speaks strongly to the power of visual imagery to spark memory and emotion.

2011 from hey_rabbit on Vimeo.

Posted in Cultures, Photography | No Comments »

Rest In Peace, Harry Morgan

I once had a career producing media. When I began, I did some work that was for public consumption such as television commercials and print advertising. Later, once I moved to Chicago, almost everything I did was corporate communications.

In addition to film and video, I did a lot of live events. Live corporate events in that era included everything from showing some slides at a board of directors meeting to an arena event for thousands of chanting, stomping sales reps. At the large events we’d often execute Broadway scale musical numbers, complete with orchestra, chorus lines and lyrics written to include the company’s products and people.

Unlike Broadway, where the cast and crew have dozens of performances to work out the kinks before opening night, we’d have, at best, one full dress rehearsal. And, unlike Broadway, if anything went wrong in our performances it often meant instant career death for the unlucky corporate person assigned responsibility for that year’s sales meeting.

To mitigate the risk inherent in a live event, one of the regular features of medium to large corporate shows was an appearance, performance or presentation by a well known celebrity, actor, performer or singer.

The upside of this was that I got the chance to meet and interact with a lot of A and B list celebrities of that time. The downside was that many, actually most, of the A and B list celebrities of that time were, to be kind, not their public persona. That reality, that gap between the popular culture version of the celebrities and the reality of the celebrities who I interacted with in order to execute the shows, was a cold slap in the face to a kid raised on television, magazines and newspapers.

Time after time I was confronted with the ugly side of fame. The narcissism, the megalomania, the egos the size of the arenas were so rampant that I soon gave up any hope of ever meeting any popular singer, musician, actor or celebrity who wasn’t a Class A, King Sized jerk.

I began to dread any show that included a marquee name.

I hit bottom when I had the misfortune of working with one of the most recognizable, most celebrated performers in the world, a hero of millions around the globe, who turned out to be one of the worst of the worst in person.

I was, at that point, beyond hope, terminally cynical about all things celebrity.

And then came Harry Morgan.

Harry Morgan was the second actor to play the colonel on the long-running hit television series M*A*S*H. Like just about everyone else with a pulse and a television, I watched M*A*S*H faithfully and knew Mr. Morgan only as Colonel Sherman Tecumseh Potter, M.D., the affable regular-Army, supposed commander of the crazy crew on the television series.

Due to my celebrity track record, when I met Mr. Morgan, I fully expected him to be just as much of a jerk as almost every other star and minor celebrity I’d worked with prior. Instead, Harry Morgan turned out to be just as much of a gentleman, just as affable and every bit as funny as he was playing the role of Col. Potter.

I honestly can’t remember the client or the details of the tour we did together, but I do remember vividly that Mr. Morgan, who only played a doctor on TV, cured me of the disease of preconceived notions.

I subsequently had the very good fortune of working and touring with celebrities and stars who turned out to be both personable, genuinely good people and a lot of fun to hang out with backstage.

Thanks Harry. May you rest in peace.

Harry Morgan 1915 – 2011

Tags: celebrities, entertainment, fame, television

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