23 Skidoo You can always tell when a cartoon character is about to run off-screen. The music speeds up and then ends with some flourish. I always think of Snagglepuss saying with an affected accent, “exit, stage left!” And off he would go with the waggle of a leg and yo-dee-do-do. Since the turn of the last century, both 23 and skidoo or skedaddle, meant to get out while the getting was good. 23 is…
Shhhhhh-owa One of the funniest comedy bits ever produced was the 2,000-Year-Old Man by Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner. I can repeat a number o the lines from that riff that always make me laugh. None makes me laugh louder that the one where Reiner (the interviewer) ask Brooks (the 2,000-year-old man) if they had language 2,000 years ago. He says they certainly did, so Reiner follows-up by asking how language came about. Brooks…
Nor Any Drop to Drink The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge was his longest major poem and was written in 1798 and published in the first edition of Lyrical Ballads. It is the story of an old seaman who takes a perilous voyage where he gets stuck in Antarctic waters until an albatross leads him out. The most famous line in the poem that most of us have heard is: Water,…
The Retirement Survey I got a reminder today from Cornell University to participate in their Retirement Activity Survey. I decided to fill it out more for interest about what they were asking and trying to sort out rather than to be a good retiree. To begin with, I feel a little funny being considered a Cornell faculty retiree. Yes, I taught at Cornell for ten years and yes, as a 50% employee I qualified…
Money Matters That old expression, “I hate it when that happens” comes to mind whenever I find myself thinking of money. It’s funny, I made a career out of running and building large money management businesses (Bankers Trust Private Banking, Deutsche Asset Management, Bear Stearns Asset Management) and yet I have little or no respect for money. Wow, that seems like a big disconnect, but I would argue that the experience of running money…
I love to Singa In 1936 Warner Brothers produced a Merrie Melodies cartoon short about a little crooner owl who called himself Owl Jolson. He was born to German parents who were traditional classical music buffs, just like Al Jolson’s 1927 classic movie, The Jazz Singer. Like in that movie, he was cast out for his musical preferences and found his way to Gong Productions (now you know where Chuck Barris got his Gong…
Money Laundering In 1994 I was asked by my superiors at Bankers Trust to take over the global private banking business. I had mixed feelings about the assignment since I had only been in my prior job for eighteen months (just about the time one gets a head of steam going) and private banking had been one of the backwaters of banking for years, being what was called a “walk the dog” service business. …
The Art of Leisure I’m learning. Today is just another May Saturday. There is nothing special about it. I’ve done my May motorcycle ride. Memorial Day is a week away. I have a business trip to a conference in Rotterdam in two weeks, and then three weeks after that (six weeks from now) we have our annual family trip (this year to Ireland). That leaves seven more weeks of summer and the month of September…
The Gulf Between Us Chuck wanted desperately to make this deal happen in Qatar. There were many good reasons for that, but none was better than the fact that seeing this groundbreaking technology advanced and even accelerated by the funding only a wealth pool like the Qataris could resource was the best of them. Everyone thought Chuck was all about making money and a casual observer would be justified in that thought, but someone…
I’m Back in the Saddle Again I’m very excited at the moment. I’m sitting at San Diego airport on a rainy, foggy Sunday when Kim and I are heading back to New York after a ten-day hiatus out here for a motorcycle ride and a few days of communing with our Casa Moonstruck and our siblings. Our flight is delayed two hours due to weather and I don’t seem to give a shit. First of…