2011
– Last 100 Days
Prodigal
Altar Boy Countdown
T-8
Days and Counting
23
December 2011
Goal:
1 hour per day working on the film
Details:
Watched
Karen Everett’s Ultimate Guide to Structuring Your Documentary week 6 module: “Editing
a Compelling Rough Cut”
Strategies
for Portraying an Inciting incident – must unfold visually
Get
the inciting incident in as early as possible
Representative
anecdote
Interview
Soundbite
Music
– Parallel, Contrary or Oblique
Animation
Narration
Total time: 1 hour
Goal:
30 minutes per day music practice
Details:
Warm
up on the MojoCaster
Grace City Christmas Service Songs
Mary, Did You Know
Emmanuel
We Three Kings
The First Noel
You Are The Living Word
O Little Town of Bethlehem
Joy To The World (Unspeakable Joy)
Total time: 2 hours
Goal:
15 minutes exercise per day
Active
rest
Goal:
15 minutes per day working on the score for the movie
“Donated”
this time to Christmas Eve music work
Worked
on chord progression for “You are The Living Word”
Total time: 30 minutes
Eight Days –
It’s the Final Countdown
My Top Ten
Favorite Things of the Last 100 Days
#8 The Grand
Prix
On
7 December, I wrote about Baltimore Racing Development’s (BRD) former CEO Jay
Davidson’s Op Ed piece in the Baltimore Sun.
The thrust of Jay’s letter is Baltimore City needs to pony up more cash
to BRD for the Grand Prix to be successful.
He states that in the title, “Grand Prix needs more from city,” and
fleshes that out in the body of the letter.
I
picked the Grand Prix for the Top Ten because Jay Davidson’s letter illustrates
the prevailing attitude of “businessmen” today.
While there was a lot of national punditry and editorial cartooning on
the attitude of “entitlement” from the Occupy movement, Jay Davidson’s letter
ran nearly unnoticed. No one commented
on Mr. Davidson’s thesis blaming the ills of the Grand Prix on state and local
governments not giving concessions to private business.
Yesterday
I named Occupy Baltimore as Number Eight of my TopTen Favorite Things of the
Last 100 Days. I pointed to Occupy
Baltimore as a reason for the shift in attitude toward BRD. While coverage of Grand Prix was positive for
a long time, often spinning BRD’s money woes as “growing pains” and “to be expected,”
as the Occupy movement grew, Baltimore’s media tide turned on BRD. Jay’s letter was the tipping point and
immediately after that piece, Baltimore City government and Baltimore media took
an increasingly harder line toward BRD.
In addition to placing a lien against Mr. Davidson’s assets, Baltimore
City set a drop-dead date of 31 December 2011 for BRD meet its financial
obligations.
Once
BRD’s blood was in the water, media coverage shifted to laying BRD’s
dysfunctions bare. From overlapping management (five managers, by Davidson’s
account), to inflated revenue estimates from a dubious “consultant,” and a
last-minute desperate loan with perks and penalties as usurious as its hard
money rate, all of the ugliness behind the Grand Prix came out fast and
furious. An article today has the city
hinting BRD might have to take a buyout deal in order to retain the contract
for the 2012 race. Even as BRD investors
cry poor and express concern over the “dilution” of their shares in the race, it
appears, as the Romans would say, “Alea iacta est,” the die is cast.
