Sparks from the Fire

Somebody asked me the other day what I thought talent was. “It’s a special natural ability to do something” I replied.  As we talked, we decided that it was different than “skill”. Wikipedia summed up our conversation with, “Talent (in the sense of natural ability or giftedness) is not the same as skill, which is a learned process.”

I’ve spent a lifetime searching for talent in others and I live in a place where it exists in droves – New York City – though we certainly don’t have a corner on it.  Actually I think each person has his/her talent.  Some people find it and develop it to a high degree; some people find it but let it founder and some people have it, but never have the opportunity to find it.

I’m fascinated by it and have basically dedicated my life to exposing it in others and developing it in myself. It’s why my partner, Jim Birch, and I founded and developed Watchfire Music.

It certainly is one of life’s special attributes. It draws us to one another like magnets. It elicits love from each of us like few other words.  It sparks immediate curiosity in each of us and inspires awe like nothing else.

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New York, New York: A place so big you have to say it twice.

New York New York is a wonderful town
The Bronx is up and the Battery’s down
The people ride in a hole in the ground
New York New York is a wonderful town

I live two blocks from Times Square, one block from the Broadway theater district and in an apartment on the 38th floor with a spectacular southern view of Manhattan – the Empire State Building to the left, Wall Street, NY Harbor and the Statue Of Liberty head on, and the Hudson River landing strip to the right. In between are buildings, buildings, buildings.

On Saturday mornings the QE2 and the S.S. United States sail up the Hudson and park in our side yard. Last month I watched people stand on the wing of a jet plane landed in the river and get saved from my dining room window. Standing on my terrace you could have watched the World Trade Center go down in my front yard and on New Year’s Eve if you lean out far enough, you can watch the ball drop and hear the roar of the people.

It’s a historic and inspirational view. We love it, live in it, look out at it and appreciate it every day. I open my living room door and walk out on my terrace and stand on the edge of the universe, its bright lights blazing before me, its millions of people scurrying below. It is a city of wonder.

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