Remoteness Today I am sitting at my desk in San Diego. We are on a hilltop that looks in every direction. My office faces north, east and west. It is in an alcove and it literally has windows on three sides that gives me the feeling of being suspended over the mountain-top. This is the view from which and the likely time of day during which I will be doing my work from starting in…
Catch-22 I watched the Mike Nichols movie based on Joseph Heller’s dark WWII comedy about a bombardier off the coast of Italy doing everything he can think of to get sent home. Catch-22, the novel, was first published in 1961 and made into a movie in 1970. The story of its title deserves to be told as a prequel to its absurd comedic tone. The concept of the rule “catch” of a paradoxical situation…
Anticipation Do you remember those ketchup commercials that wanted to highlight the thickness of their product? It was for Heinz ketchup, the Hertz Rent-a-car of the ketchup world. The music of Carly Simon played loudly with her slightly altered lyrics (which I believe she herself sang) made the ketchup people’s point. “Anticipation. Is makin’ me late. Is keepin’ me waitin’!” This 3:16 song was written, as most songs, it seems, as a love song. …
Not Just a Hat Rack Grace Ethel Cecile Rosalie Allen was an American actress, singer, dancer and comedian who was known as Gracie Allen and was married to George Burns, the actor and comedian. The Burns and Allen Show ran for years on both radio and television with Burns being the straight man to Allen’s hair-brained female routine. We all remember the way their show always ended, “Say Goodnight, Gracie.” What we may not…
Sliding On In Doormen are unusual relationships for tenants. I have a very strong relationship with Corrado (Mr. Porca Miseria) based on the need to be sympathetic to the tragedy of his wife’s ongoing cancer treatments. In our apartment in the Seaport we had a doorman that had a daughter with a woman out of wedlock, who he was raising since she was in jail. That certainly gave us something to talk about. One of…
WeWorked By now, most people in the literate world have heard of WeWork. It is the shared workspace company that caters to and further encourages the entrepreneurial culture that is blossoming across the globe. WeWork has become globally ubiquitous in the less than ten years of its existence. What Uber/Lyft are to car culture and what Airbnb is to hospitality, WeWork is to Dilbert and office cubicle culture. Adam Neumann, the Israeli kibbutz-raised kid and…
Summer Haircuts Our dog, Cecil, is pure Bichon Frise, so like the dandelion pappus that adorn the late-summer lawns of the U.S., he becomes a fuzzball as the summer rolls on. When he gets his summer haircut he is as happy as a dog can be. It could be my imagination, but he seems to hop around with his high and tight white clip. Kim thinks he struts like a little tough. He looks cooler…
Beyond Meat I am intrigued. Beyond Meat, the California start-up that launched its highly successful IPO a few months ago, now trades at over 100X sales. What’s especially interesting is that the concept of an alternative protein that provides a substitute for meat products (beef, pork and chicken) is hardly new. Where is tofu with its patent infringement claims? How upset must the ubiquitous veggie burger be at this turn of events? Even Bacos…
Grindr Goes Global Admit it, you’ve heard of Grindr, the world’s largest social networking app for gay, bi, trans, and queer people. My wife Kim and I have many gay, one trans and probably a lot of queer friends (even though I do not think I could adequately define that term with any precision). You notice I do not suggest we have bi friends, though we may, because how would we know unless we…
Life on the Bubble What is a bubble? On the one hand a bubble is a globe-shaped amorphous item with a gas inside of a liquid formation. If you had to live on a bubble, it would be a very tenuous existence for sure. A bubble can also be a situation where market prices are unsustainable and artificially high. That’s an economic term usually applied to situations that cause many people to make a…