The Popeye in Me Why the hell did Popeye ever become so famous? Why did the depression era audiences of the comic strips of King Features become so drawn to a one-eyed sailor during the interregnum of two world wars? I have a far easier time grasping the appeal of Bettle Bailey or Blondie, the other King Features favorites, than I do Popeye. He seems, with his Steamboat Willy-like ensemble of Brutus, Wimpy and Olive…
Digital Anthropology It used to be that our attics or basements or garages were the places where we piled up the junk that we couldn’t part with but yet knew that we would sooner or later throw out. Plenty of that still goes on, but several phenomenon of modern life have given us respite from having to face our inner hoarders in a self-deprecating manner every day. The most obvious of these litter the roadsides…
Pop Tarts Where do old comedians go to die? Well, they find a comedian who managed to make it big thirty-five years ago and made so much money in syndication form his decade-long serial run on TV that he’s become a household name and people who have never even been to New York City think his New York CIty humor about nothing is hilarious. Then that guy, who’s worth somewhere around $1 billion from that…
The Summer Solstice A few days ago we had a quaint reminder of days gone by when life was simple and summers were about listening to music in the park and catching fireflies. Quick, what was your first job as a kid? Some might say mowing a lawn, For me it was caddying at the Poland Spring Golf Course in lovely Poland Spring, Maine. We lived there from January, 1966 until August, 1968. Those years…
The Pause That Refreshes After three days in a row of 10+ hour report writing (I have to incorporate research and data as I go, so this sort of expert report writing takes time), and four sequential drafts sent off to my lawyer friends who are effectively my client, I got an email today telling me to pause my writing while they catch up. I have one thing only to do vis-a-vis this case where…
Whisk Me Away I am comforted by thinking that what I am experiencing in life is not so very different from what others my age are going through. I am not talking about physical maladies (though we all have our own “organ recitals” to go through on any given day). I am also not talking about financial affairs. I just saw a piece by an MBA classmate of mine that has built a practice of…
Hitting a Nerve Sometimes people ask me why I feel compelled to write as much as I do. I am feeling that question well-up right now since my trip to Ithaca burned up my backlog of stories. I’m sure that regular readers have noticed that sometimes my daily stories are timely to the point of feeling like they are being published contemporaneously, and sometimes they feel several weeks old (hopefully not so stale as simply…
Decadence I have been getting the Hammacher Schlemmer catalog for years. The merchant has been around for 175 years, which is, in itself, impressive and means that it’s origins in the Bowery area of New York City in 1848 as a hardware store set its beginnings in the pre-Civil War era. That means it was just in its early years during the era of the Dead Rabbits Gang and Boss Tweed with his Tammany Hall…
A Summer Trim I know what you’re thinking….you think I’m going to talk about losing two pounds and bragging about taking a few bags off the Queen Mary, as they say. Nope. OK, so now you’re thinking that I plan to boast again about cutting my own hair and how easy and economical that is the post-COVID world, even though my one trip to a barber had him telling me that you can REALLY tell…
Getting Hosed When you retire, certain things you have taken for granted for many years suddenly come to the fore and take on a much higher level of importance. I’m sure this varies based on where one lives and what interests you are likely to pursue in retirement. But I think its fair to say that retirement has an aspect to it that involves trying to spend more time with nature and for most people…