Happy New Year!
Kicking over the traces with good friends Didi & Lil!
“Out with the Old and In with the New!” has never rung more true for me than it does with the advent of 2012!
It’s only been five years since I moved back to Vancouver after twenty years away in New York. It’s taken that long just to find good Mexican!
So it was a complete accident when I got caught up in local politics during efforts to improve my building.
When Peter Ladner came over to ask me to run, I spent the first half hour pointing out to him how unsuited I was then to be a candidate, having just moved home, with so few connections, etc.
But I’m incapable of doing anything half-heartedly, especially when it comes to underdogs, and what should have been a brief political detour ended up consuming the next three years of my life.
Some have taken exception to my post-campaign public renunciation of local politics and the demands of public life, thinking it originates from pique or is just a bruised ego talking.
Bruised ego aside, something I readily own up to, this last campaign left me in debt and it’s out of necessity that I must turn my attention to the responsibility I owe first to my family, as well as to the cadre of internationally-celebrated, grammy-award-winning clients we serve through our business, ArtistManager.Net: Talented Websites For The Most Talented People In The World!
I have spent my entire life involved in the performing arts and entertainment and had the privilege of working at the top of that profession internationally, first as a VP with Columbia Artists Management and with my own agency IAG, and now producing state-of-the-art websites that renowned artists use to communicate with the world.
I love Vancouver and the hundreds of remarkable people we’ve had the pleasure of meeting through politics since moving back, and I’ve grown immensely through the experience.
But I believe after three years of intense service that I’ve more than discharged any obligation I ever had to the NPA – twice over in my own estimation.
Now I must – and am eager to – focus my energy and attention on the re-imagined, reinvented, next-generation incarnation of our business that we will be launching next month.
The importance of community remains one of my fundamental values though, as does the prime importance in life of the arts. So I continue as Strata Chair of my building – Paris Place – continuing efforts to improve quality of life for our residents and for my neighborhood, in cooperation with the Crosstown Residents Association and False Creek Residents Association.
I also remain Chair of a Strategic Task Force for the Langley Community Music School co-founded by my sister Linda, third-largest music school in BC and one of the largest in western Canada.
And I will continue to write and speak out on issues I believe are important to a Canadian way of life I see as increasingly threatened.
Tom and I end 2011 a little leaner but much greener and even keener than ever before to meet the challenges of trying to invent a small but excellent slice of the future, an adventure we’ve been involved in conducting together since we first met in 1986, my first year in New York.
To everyone chasing their dreams, I salute you and share your passion for what comes next!
Here’s to a fabulous 2012!
