The Table Tilts We try to keep politics out of the mix during our motorcycle rides of the last twenty-four years. We tend to fail miserably at that goal since feelings run deep and in opposite directions, just like on the national scene. In the motorcycling world nothing means more than the kind of metal you ride. While there are plenty of subcultures in motorcycling, the big rift is between people who ride Harley Davidsons…
Back in the Bul We arrived yesterday afternoon at the brand new Istanbul Airport. While I first came to Istanbul twenty-five years ago, I feel like I have had a crash course in Turkey in the past two years. When I came here several times between 1994-1998, it was while I was running Global Private Banking for Bankers Trust. We had a number of clients in Istanbul and I would spend most Friday’s and Saturday’s…
Heading to the Center of the Earth When you learn about the anthropological history of mankind (whether through a course or a personalized DNA sample intended to give you some sense of whence you evolved), you quickly learn that the best anthropologists can determine, we all began in East Africa somewhere as part of Lucy’s clan. From there our ancestors headed north across what we now call the Red Sea into the Fertile Crescent of…
A Man’s Character is His Fate I will be in Ephesus on the Western Coast of Turkey in five days. Ephesus is famous in world history for many things I expect to learn more about during that visit. As I sit here today, waiting to travel to Istanbul for this trip, I am trying to get my fill of impeachment news since I imagine I will be getting it all on some degree of time…
A Little Bit City, A Little Bit Country Donny and Marie Osmond made A Little Bit Country, A Little Bit Rock ‘N Roll their theme song for their variety show in the 1970’s. It was driven by the schizophrenia of Nashville in that era. Mashing up music genres must have been an unnatural act. In today’s multi-pronged social-media-saturated world, I guess everyone has an easier time with mash-ups. As I headed uptown this morning in…
Bringing the Troops Home for Christmas Only 90 shopping days until Christmas! I usually treat holidays with a great deal of flexibility. My oldest kids’ mother, a lovely woman for whom I have the utmost of respect and affection, takes Christmas as seriously as she takes anything. This is a woman whose basement storage room shelves are neatly stacked with sealed plastic Container Store bins, properly labeled with each of the holidays (major ones and…
To Be or Not to Be I don’t know whether I want to work anymore. That sounds funny when I read that back. Work is one of those funny words that can mean just about anything. I was not a privileged kid (not that I was “underprivileged” either), so I did my share of manual labor jobs as a kid. Given a childhood interrupted by my mother going to graduate school for four years,…
Compromising Compromises In almost every corner of modern life there are reasons to compromise rather than stick dogmatically to a strong and extreme position. This issue itself can be a very debatable one and some will say that compromise on the most important issues is unacceptable and morally repugnant. If only the world was always so black and white, life would be a lot less morally conflicted. I remember in high school, I attended…
Born to be Wild Every once in a while I see some sort of special event that catches my fancy. A few weeks ago I stumbled on an online ad for a one-night-only 50th anniversary showing of Easy Rider at Radio City Music Hall. It’s actually 50 years, two months and six days since the first day of release of the movie on July 14th, 1969, Bastille Day. Fifty years is a long time.…
Forever Young When I wake up each morning, I take stock in how I feel. I’m pretty sure everyone does some form of this assessment consciously or subconsciously. This morning it has been conscious. To begin with, I awoke at 5:18 after sleeping since 11pm. My conscious mind said I should go back to sleep for another hour. When I awoke next at 5:34 I knew it that was all she wrote. I have…