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My Page: Alan Kleinfeld

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From the Road Warrior

I travel a lot for work. Most people find it fascinating that I get paid to fly around the country and see fascinating cities like New York, Washington, DC, Boston, San Diego and so forth. In reality, traveling for business is exhausting, especially when the cities aren’t NYC or Boston, but rather somewhere less, well, glamourous.

When airline tickets were first available to purchase online I thought it was the greatest thing next to sliced bread, cable TV and the fax machine. It was the future and it was cool. [more]

Traveling Tales

Have you ever been “puffed” at an airport? I got my first “puffing” at the Jacksonville, Florida airport less than a year ago as I was processed through security. I had no idea at the time what the contraption was the TSA agent asked me to walk into, but the Star Trek-esque device made a loud cough and shot me in the face with a cool puff of air. Actually, I thought it felt good. [more]

Live and Let Live

New Mexico has made the top of another "best of" list. With the recent Forbes #1 ranking for business, it’s nice to see more positive survey results. This time we tie with New York state for tolerance, and in particular for the rights of gays and lesbians to marry. The survey was conducted in part by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

I wasn't all that surprised that our live and let live attitude has been recognized. If it’s one thing New Mexico has tons of it is acceptance. In 2004, the Urban Institute Press, out of Washington, DC, ranked Albuquerque in the top 10 cities with high concentrations of same-sex households. Yes, that’s right. Little ol’ Albuquerque ranked 8th among cities like San Fran, Seattle, New York, Austin, Los Angeles and Atlanta. [more]

Just My Opinion

This week marked the season finale of another American Idol run, a jewel in the Fox Channel crown. It came down to 21-year-old Katharine McPhee from La-La Land (who has long, brown hair and reminds me of a beauty pageant contestant) and gray-haired, 29 year old Taylor Hicks, a southern boy with a slightly pudgy middle section.

Though I never wasted my money to call and vote (you could even text your vote, but either way, there was a fee involved), at the water cooler, I always gave my support to Taylor, even before he was a finalist. I, too, have gray hair and though I’m older than Taylor I’m not old enough to have gray hair. Yet. When AI started some five seasons ago, I think you had to be under 25 years old, so that was another reason I supported Taylor. He’s the old guy in the group. [more]

New West Living

I've mentioned in this space before that I'm a recent re-transplant to Albuquerque, moving here not yet a year ago from our nation's capitol. The transition returning home has been a hard one, if not impossible. So challenging in fact, that we sold the home we just moved into and planned to hightail it back to the Right Coast, where they have subway systems, Nordstrom's, and people moving at speeds other than slo-mo.

And then things changed. Maybe it was the fact that we'd been here almost a year and were getting over our knee-jerk reaction. Maybe it was the sunshine and the nearly perfect weather. Perhaps it was the fact that there are so many golf courses within a short drive (and at half the cost of those in the DC area). Or possibly it was because our job offers back east fell apart like so many Hollywood marriages. [more]

New West Living

In my fulltime, pay-the-rent job, I’m what is known as a meeting planner. In Washington, DC, from where I just relocated to Albuquerque, meeting planning is a big thing. Just about every association in the country (and there’s one for everything) is headquartered or has an office in Washington, DC.

Although the company I work for is still based in DC, we help manage conferences and events all over the country. We had a real whopper recently at the brand new Hyatt Regency Denver Convention Center (the hotel was so new that the carpet fibers clung by static all over our pant legs). The group was a nonprofit with a name so long they made up a nonsensical acronym that means nothing except to members of the association whose purpose is improving the life and education of children of migrant workers. [more]

A Gay Time for Business

No one seems to know for sure what the economic impact is of the gay/lesbian spender, but we often hear that GLBT (gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender) families have lots of disposable income, that gays and lesbians spend tons of money on travel, real estate and anything hip and new. And more than once, the “gays” have been credited for taking decrepit neighborhoods in metropolitan locals and turning them into meccas.

I suppose some of that must be true, especially when companies like Subaru, Orbitz.com, and American Airlines spend millions to get the big gay dollars. Another thing GLBT folks do with their money is business. They own their own companies, hold high-ranking positions in other organizations and act as professional leaders in the business world as a whole.

That being the case, it may not surprise you to learn that New Mexico now has its own GLBT business association in SOPA, the Sandia Out Professional Alliance. I suppose some might call it a gay and lesbian chamber of commerce, which kinda makes sense seeing that SOPA plans to become an affiliate of the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, an advocate group for GLBT businesses, based in Washington, DC. [more]

Thoughts on Culture

Okay. So if you’re the Academy of Motion Pictures and you have to honor one movie as the year’s best and it’s going to upset some people, who are you gonna piss off, the blacks or gays? The Oscars chose the gays.

Race is an issue of utmost importance and many folks were pleased that Crash (all about race relations and stereotypes) won best picture at the recent Academy Awards. And that’s all find and dandy. And I really did enjoy Crash, too. But if a movie is going to dance around civil rights, shouldn’t it entail a minority that spans all races? Personally, I think it would have been better had Brokeback Mountain taken home the best picture award. [more]

Downtown Development

In billiards, English means to apply side spin to the cue ball by striking it off center. What's this have to do with Albuquerque? Well, most people don't think billiards when they think of the Duke City. I, for one, tend to think of bad drivers, beautiful weather and a big purple mountain. But thanks to one entrepreneur, billiards is coming to town in a big way.

Oddly enough our state has history with pool and billiards (two different sports, same principle--billiards is played on a bigger table with smaller balls and softer cloth, making it more challenging). The founders of the famous Olhausen pool table, Butch and Don Olhausen, are from New Mexico. They started their careers in the Land of Enchantment (somewhere in the southern part of the state, I believe) working for their dad setting up and re-covering pool tables. Of course, when the boys moved to California in the late 60s and early 70s, they took their idea with them (and once again, New Mexico was SOL). [more]

Reflections on Super Bowl Sunday

Okay. I admit up front that this is a bitch-n-moan piece. If you want something nice to read, check out something by Emily E. She’s always got something interesting to say.

Me? I was in a perfectly good mood (or as good as I can be) when I realized on Sunday morning that over eight hours of TV time would be pledged, sworn and dedicated to the Super Bowl that day. Eight hours, folks. To a football game. A game that should last no longer than 60 minutes. Um, Houston, we have a problem. [more]

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