Yes, despite the title, this post is about work. Or more importantly, recreation related to work. Or maybe it’s just so I can say I wrote about cigars and scotch in my blog in a feeble attempt to claim a tax deduction on my latest vice purchases.

I just got back from the cigar store, having purchased two smokes - one for later tonight, and one for next week. I really like cigars a lot, but I also realize they aren’t that good for you, so I limit my intake to about one a week from April-November (once it gets cold out, I don’t smoke, as I smoke outside.)

Anyway, after tax, I spent 20-something dollars total for these two smokes. Got a Pardron 4000 Maduro that I can’t wait to try (that’s tonight’s smoke), and one of my old favorites, a Romeo Y Julieta Cedaro #2 (this is my go-to stick). Combined with this cigar burning will be a bottle of Glenlivit 18 year-old, simply one of the finest single malt scotches out there. The bottle retailed for about $90 here in NY.

This post isn’t to impress you about what I smoke/drink. To start, you likely don’t care, and I’m sure many people would say I’m stupid for spending $90 on scotch when the same size bottle of Johnny Walker Red is $15. And that’s fine. I do admit I have developed expensive tastes in this regard (I also drink fairly expensive beer and coffee), but really, I mention the prices to more or less make a point about work.

And that point is I noticed my tastes for this stuff rose along with the income I produced. Yea, there was a time in my life when I bought the Walker Red and convenience store cigars (MSRP $5 for 6). And that time was when I was working one of my many jobs, making $30-$40k. I also drove a used Nissan Altima during this time, and bought cheap “Skil” tools, a far cry from the nice truck and DeWalt drill I now have.

Now, let me tell you - the “top end” stuff is worth the money. It simply tastes/performs/drives better. It’s unlikely there are many scotch drinkers out there that actually prefer the Red to the Glenlivit 18 y/o. And there are likely no cigar aficionados that, given the choice where money was no object, would light up a Dutch Masters over that Padron that’s sitting in my garage. But when you bring price into the equation, things change. A 28 y/o Dan would have never, ever spent $90 on a bottle of scotch, no matter how good it was. Because 28 y/o Dan didn’t have that kind of money to throw around. Truthfully, 28 y/o Dan was pretty broke (good looking, but broke). Part of the problem was I was working for money, and not success.

In the end, when you boil it right down, technically, we all work for money. But it’s deeper than that for me and people like me (other entrepreneurs, etc). I don’t want just money. I can get money working at WalMart. I want success. For some people, success is millions. For others, it’s just a roof. And for others, it’s working at home with freedom while being able to afford some of “the finer things” (like nice scotch) without killing yourself workwise. Either of these are valid. For me, part of the taste of that cigar and scotch is the taste of success. And it tastes really good.

Stop working for money. Start working for success, however you want to define it.

I talk a lot here about the benefits of working for yourself, and yea, I admit, it’s a pretty nice gig overall. But it’s not all sunshine and rainbows, either. There are some drawbacks, and I’d be remiss if I did not mention a few of them. Keep in mind these are more slated towards me and people like me (basically a one-person or very small operation.)

• It’s hard doing everything in relation to your business. For example, I answer my own phone, and I answer all e-mail (I know you are saying “big deal”, but really, these two tasks eat up a lot of time. I’m getting better at reducing the time spent, but still, it’s a lot. )
  

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• In relation to the above, guess who is responsible for all marketing and such… like adwords, updating the website, blog posts, business forums (gotta keep up a presence), etc. Yup, me again. And increasingly, these tasks are far from the “set it and forget it” they were a few years ago. Your website needs constant work. Your adwords needs attention. You need to write a blog. A few twitters won’t hurt. Etc. This all takes time. Truthfully, you get very few actual days off. The only time I ever really take off are my vacations, when I totally unplug. Otherwise, it’s generally seven days a week. Admittedly, I try not to do client work on weekends, but I still do the e-mail thing, I still work on the site and my marketing, and I’m writing this very blog post on a Saturday. It never really gets shut off.
  

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• Us smaller operations are very vulnerable to the economy. Right now, I am working harder than I did two years ago, for about the same (and maybe even a little less) money. In an overall sense, the jobs (and invoices) have gotten smaller, there’s no doubt about that.
  

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• We’re also very “exposed” in terms of competition. Here’s what I mean by that… my brother-in-law owns a popular local jewelry store. To compete with him, you really kind of need a million dollars to open a competing store. What do you need to compete with me? Some writing talent, a small website, and enough $$ for a few adwords ads… am I leaving anything out?  The barrier to entry for us small businesses is minuscule. That’s, of course, a good thing for people starting out, but it’s also not so great for those of us already here, as I just illustrated.
  

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• There’s also the “grow or die” thing that all businesses seemingly must adhere to. If you aren’t moving forward, then you are moving backwards. But… maybe I’m happy where I am. Maybe I don’t really want to grow. Maybe I don’t really want to hire other writers and juggle 10 projects at once. I’m at this point right now - do I want to stay (essentially) a one-guy shop, or do I want to expand? See, staying a one-guy shop will be hard, because of my third point above (smaller jobs, more work, less money). But growing… that’s scary. What to do? I really don’t know the answer, so my first inclination was to actually try and combine the two by growing the “Dan Furman Brand”, so to say.  Which is what I’m going to try (that’s what the new website I’m working on is for.) 

I left out a lot of stuff, obviously, but the above should give you an idea that working for yourself is by no means ”easy” (as some people have told me it must be.) In fact, I wish sometimes my life was as simple as showing up to some job Mon-Fri, collecting a paycheck, and not even thinking about work during off hours. I’ve done both, and working for yourself is way harder. I like it better (by a good deal), but it’s by no means easy.

Goodness, that felt good to write

I noticed something about Facebook… not all of my friend’s posts make my front page - ever. Facebook seems to pick and choose what makes it to my default view by a “most popular news” thingee…

Which begs the question - how do they figure what’s most popular?

Which brings us to a second question - how long before businesses, who are starting to “get” Facebook, start looking to ”FSO” (Facebook Status Optimization… my term ) their way to the top?

Just a quick food for thought. And while we’re on it, WTF happened to Myspace? There’s fodder for another post.

As you know, although I work a lot, I’m definitely not ”all business / all the time”. That would make Dan no fun. So let’s revisit movies and do another movie review.

I used to write reviews for a DVD review site years ago, and still have them. I figured I’d post a few here. Today, we’re looking at Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis”. I’m also pretty juiced, because more lost footage of this film was found in Argentina in 2008, and a new DVD is coming out in late 2010. The new running time will be 145 minutes, which is about 30 minutes longer than what I review below:

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Once more, I find myself not motivated to watch (or review) anything released recently. So I’ll go back to my shelf and again throw in an old classic to tell you about. As in previous “classic” reviews, my motivation is to bring you something you may not have seen before.

Today, I settled on the 1927 silent film Metropolis.

In a recent “Movie Answer Man” column, Roger Ebert writes: “There are more amazing shots in German films from the 1920s than in most new releases”. One viewing of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis will show anyone that Mr. Ebert knows what he is talking about. To this day, I still marvel over the sheer power of the astounding set pieces used in this film, and am continually amazed that it was made over 80 years ago.

For those who don’t know, Metropolis is probably the first true science fiction feature film, and also the last gasp of the German Expressionist movement that dominated the early part of 20th century film. Soon after its release, sound would come and change everything. Movies could then focus more on the actors themselves than trying to rely on largely the camera to tell the story. In my opinion, Metropolis is the last great silent film, and one of the most visual movies ever made.

Metropolis tells the story of a futuristic city where a seemingly utopian society lives and plays. Unknown to this idyllic populace is the fact that their city is powered by a huge underground labyrinth of huge machines tended to by a downtrodden working class, whom also live underground. Both sects are unaware of the other until worker Maria (Brigitte Helm) leads some children to the surface. There, she is spotted by Freder (Gustav Fröhlich), the son Metropolis’ architect, Joh Fredersen (Alfred Abel). Freder follows Maria back to the underground, where he sees for the first time the true source of his city’s power. Horrified at the treatment and condition of the downtrodden workers, he pleads with his father to do something. Meanwhile, Maria is also trying to lead the workers to unite. Fredersen doesn’t want the workers doing anything but work, so he schemes with mad scientist Rotwang (Rudolph Klein-Rogge) to produce a robot duplicate of Maria to lead the workers astray. Rotwang agrees, but he also has his own agenda…

I’m quickly going through the story because it isn’t really that important. In fact, until this DVD was released, I never really even knew the full story, because the prints available made no sense. After the 1927 release, most prints were cut, and then lost, leaving huge gaps in the story. This Kino release has restored every possible frame that could be restored, and has added title cards to fill us in on the few parts of the story that are still missing (in a “meanwhile, back at the ranch” sort of way). While I’m happy to have finally been filled in just why Maria was wandering in that cave, I’m more pleased at finally seeing the awesome visuals on a quality DVD. Think about it for a second - I’ve loved this movie since I first saw it 25+ years ago in a high school film class, and until now I wasn’t able to really follow the story. The visuals are just that good.

The visuals… what can I really say? Those of you who have seen this film know exactly what I mean. To start with, the futuristic city looks fantastic, with tall buildings, roads in the sky linking them, and without one bit of the “cheesy” look we sometimes get from older movies with a futuristic slant. But as nice as the above-ground city looks, Metropolis gets its fame from the incredible set pieces and hundreds of extras that make up the underground. The awesome spectacle of hundreds of downtroden workers marching to work, slowly and deliberately in lockstep, as hundreds of others march the other way, their ten-hour day over. The giant machines, as big as mountains, seemingly (and figuratively) like huge devils requiring human suffering and sacrifice to keep them running. The futility of a man, trying desperately to keep his steam powered machine running, never able to slow down for a second, as the machine’s thirst for human power is unending.

Metropolis has set the stage for some brilliant science fiction that came later. Certainly Blade Runner, Dark City , and Total Recall directly pay it homage, and its anti-technology theme has been revisited time and time again (most notably in the Terminator films). C3PO of Star Wars fame is certainly taken right from Rotwang’s robot. In fact, every mad scientist who has a lab with electrical currents running up wires needs to thank Rotwang for inventing that.

In viewing the movie, I can’t help but think that films of the next 20 years took a step back from Metropolis. When I see the horribly laughable Science Fiction “serials” of the thirties and forties with their string powered spaceships and cardboard box robots, I can’t help but think Metropolis looks strikingly better, despite being made far earlier. There isn’t one bit of cheesiness in this film, and it deserves every rave review it gets.

One final note – there are several versions of this film out there on DVD. I implore you to forget about all the others except the Kino release. They are truly horrible. Metropolis is a true classic, and the Kino release finally does it justice.

You freelancers / work at home / service people will LOVE this.