Wednesday, September 1, 2010
It Happened
Well, it finally happened. The asset has been made into a tangible asset and it has been validated by the largest inter-broker in the world. It's paid in capital includes a marriage, a great sport horse, the perfect cottage any sporting gentleman would ever want, tons of passed on pussy, another stent, and a broken heart. But, Gentlemen, it has been worth it. It is a moment to decide with whether to continue the whole opera or not.
When you are crazy enough to identify with gun dogs, sporting horses, spies, professional hunters, gun dog trainers and wise whores -- you understand that Fogelberg was a cosmic-conscious guy when he wrote "Run for the Roses" in 1982. "Run as fast as you can. Your fate is delivered. Your moment is at hand. It's the chance of a life time -- in a life time of chance." Otherwise, whats the point.
My fellow race horses, you understand. It is our curse. It is what makes us from not ending it all. That, and what to do with the horse and dogs and art and best shot guns and custom rifles and trophies and the ashes of old gun dogs and sport horses and an Old Lion.
As my Jeff (see early blog "Jeff") would say -- "If there's no joy. What's the point."
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Video Art
What makes some video just commercial or personal property, and others -- few others -- become art. Image Art. What are the elements that define just video and art. What quantitative score says, "This one is art."
Historically important newsreels and raw footage (at least 6 tracks) and/or music tracks (at least 24 channels) can be image, commercial, collectable, AND intellectual property art. Important collections, like the military one we reviewed and declined for auction, are out there, and they are commercially successful and artistically acclaimed -- but they don't past the intellectual property test and therefore are not interesting or nearly as valuable.
To past the intellectual property test, the collection (the market for individual product does not exist) must be copyrighted/copyrightable and it must be able to spawn other copyrights. Examples -- make infinite concerts that are each individually copyrighted from the raw footage of the "collection copyright" of raw videos -- find photo image art in newsreel footage.
Video intellectual property must past the hard asset/tangible asset test on a balance sheet. Intellectual property on corporate balance sheets is generally expressed as an intangible asset. Aside from the copyright issues, the financial tests/questions my Firm uses/asks is -- can the purchase price be deducted, can the video be donated to a reporting non-profit entity, is the content historically important, is there a current revenue stream from commercial endeavors, is the asset insurable.
There is a real market for it. It can be brokered through a direct transaction, or sold through international auction, or traded on the exchange which is currently in development. My firm is involved in the first two, and we are on the list for seat on the exchange -- but, they don't want to take our money until the project gets closer to launch and they have time to sort out copyrights vs patents. It took the Firm two years to get a seat at intellectual property auctions for copyrights -- so we are patient and understand the process.
What is needed is an intellectual property art gallery where individual video art can be sold. If you believe that the aesthetic of a historic newsreel and a Jasper Johns is the same -- then you can buy and enjoy the art as ip art -- expressed as a hard asset on your personal financial statement -- along with your Jasper Johns.
Leo had his showings in his in-law's mansion -- where he and his wife also lived -- when he started and for many years thereafter. I have a huge, formal dining room in this pre-war apartment on the park. It is going to be my gallery.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Aesthetics
What I have bet my career decision on (ip art dealer -- the Leo Castelli of pop culture art) is that the aesthetic between a video and a de Koonig are the same. They are both art -- image art and commercial art and intellectual property art. Copyrightable image art. And hardest of all -- image art that can spawn other image art.
I found one in 2b1. Actually, my Rabbi auctioneer found it for me -- he always gives me the hard ones -- Lilly White, PD military, Jimi Hendrix. He found it for me 2 years ago when he put me into copyrights from patents. It has taken me 2 years to figure it out and get it ready for auction. It has a $4M reserve because its underlying commercial value and its intellectual property value (copyrights) allow copyrights to spawn new, multiple copyrights.
Check out the Ocean Tomo/ICAP November, 2010 Intellectual Property Auction web site. Click on "Catalog", click on data room, read my Firm's (www.patenscorp.com) analysis of the Collection in "Overview of the 2b1 Collection". If you believe in the aesthetic, 2b1 is not only very valuable, it is historically important in the evolution of video as pop culture art.
I know that few believe me. Maybe none, except "ARTFORUM International Magazine" and the auction Rabbi. Those who know me, and my brain, and who would never bet against me -- scratch their heads awaiting enlightenment, wondering if this time I have lost it. Read, "ARTFORUM International Magazine", Summer 2010 Edition, "Screen Memories" page 61. I'm not only sane, I am right. A video IS the same aesthetic as a de Koonig.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
May
I have a new horse. A mare. Her name is May. She's 16 hands and was a 2 time reigning champion. She's 12 so she's just at the right age -- not too green, not too old. She'll have at least 8 good years to compete at the top of her game. She'll keep me in the saddle competing to age 70. I got her from the same trainer/breeder that I get my bird dogs from -- he's a horse trainer as well as a dog trainer/field trial judge. He knows horses as well as he knows gun dogs. He wanted me to have her because we are friends and he knew my soul was hurting.
It was time. That woman made me give up Scooter when she was looking for ways to punish me -- and I did because I thought it would help, but it was a heart-wrenching mistake. I put a lot into Scooter in terms of training, money, time, and a lot of emotion to make he and I a great team and he into a first rate $35K eventing horse. I gave him away to his trainer in return for her assurances that he would be cared for the rest of his life. I never returned to visit him because it was just too painful for us both. I think of him almost every day. I not only miss Scooter, but I miss being around horses and riding. I have lost over 2 years of training. I feel like I need to move on and repair the mistake as best I can with a new horse to love and work with.
I will not pursue eventing any longer -- I'm too old and won't heal if I come off -- not "if", "when" I come off. I keep thinking of the aristocrat I met at my friend's French vineyard 3 years ago -- a competitive equestrian his whole life -- who told me as he surveyed my shattered elbow in its plastic cast, "Europeans stop equestrian competition at age 60." I had come off Scooter when he stumbled. To this day my elbow hurts when it rains, and cracks, snapples, pops with any movement.
Reigning is the Western equivalent of dressage -- May obviously bends and knows how to move. Western style I presume -- fast, crisp, sharp -- not the slow, prancing, precise style of European dressage. I am going to focus on dressage and make May into an European style dressage horse and me into a dressage rider. Dressage was one of 3 disciplines that was part of the eventing competition -- Scooter and I were never that great at it, but we were adequate. (Typically, Quarter Horses don't bend that well.) Scooter made up below average dressage scores with outstanding cross country scores and above average ring jumping scores.
I have found a first rate barn with a first rate professional (woman of course) to train both May and me. I am arranging for May to be shipped from Ct to Ill now. I have no idea what all this is going to cost, but whatever it is, my soul needs it. I have also re-connected with my salt water Florida Keys guide who I haven't fished with in at least 5 years. We are fishing together in the Fall. I have also re-connected with my friends on the Eastern Shore where I intend to find a Bay boat to live on when I am waterfowling and fishing.
I need to get my full sporting life back. I have done about all the bird shooting and trout fishing I can stand for the next few years. That woman took equestrian sport, big game hunting, waterfowling, and salt water fishing away from me -- and shame on me, I let her. Now I am taking it back.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
The Eastern Shore
There is a place on the Eastern Shore of Maryland that all the old elephants go to at the end of their lives -- when they are on their last set of molars. It is a place where those who were once the Askari's of all the great media and military moguls -- or those who were the trust fund beneficiaries of those moguls -- go to end their days in accustomed comfort among fellow warriors and hunters. It is a place where gentlemen hunt waterfowl and birds with best English, US, Italian, and German shotguns from the 1920's to the 1950's -- when a shot gun was a piece of hand-crafted art. It is a place that all the old sailing crowd goes -- the crowd that crewed the big IOR boats of the moguls when we were all so young and beautiful and careless. It is a place where sport horses and gun dogs hold top spot in all our hearts -- we have all learned and loved enough women, and they us, in such sweet sorrow. It is a place where at the end, we all take care of each other, respect each other for our feats of daring and our lives of adventure and flat out living, where we all go when we have mis-timed the outflow of our wealth and need to re-fill our piggy banks among friends who will keep us and shelter us in the manner in which we have grown accustomed -- and bury us when the time comes and tell of our adventures and capers so we live on. It is a place of retired big game hunters, and admirals, and CIA guys, and outlaw watermen -- all having grown old enough to be sick of the killing. It is a place of shooting farms that rival Scotland and horse barns that rival Millbrook's. And it is the waterfowl capital of the world -- where annually waterfowlers from all over the world converge to celebrate the sport, its dogs, its customs, and themselves. It's a guy's "guy place". I'm going back and live in one of the houses on one of the big shooting estates amongst my brethren. It is time. I am on my last set of molars.
