Stand-up Comedy If you’ve seen the movie The Aristocrats, you know how demented comedians can be. The Aristocrats “joke” is purposefully lewd and disgusting. In fact, the joke perpetuates and magnifies the crudeness and pushes comedians to try to out-do each other with more and more sick imagination. It does not help burnish the image of the profession. I’m sure one of the biggest challenges for new comedians is to know where to draw…
See the U.S.A. In seventeen days we will get in our leased Mercedes Benz 450 GLS, loaded up with luggage, the dog (and his dog seat…complete with seatbelt) and my Audible book files. We’ve done this before a few times, the biggest reason being that its the only way to get the dog cross-country. I like driving, so this is not something I dread. The last time we did this, we did it in three…
Life as an Outline In my story of several days ago I wrote of the sense of end of days as we approach yet another decade turning point. That got me thinking about the beginning of decades and what they have tended to portend. As I have reflected, I have found that there does, indeed, seem to be a pattern of optimism and new beginnings that accompany the start of a new decade. This may…
Memory Lapse Yes, Ambassador Gordon Sondland forgot he had said this and that, that he had done this and that and that he had called President Trump from a Kiev restaurant and then admitted to embassy staffers that Trump cared only about his own political goals in Ukraine. Yes, Trump doesn’t seem to remember what he said about this or that or in whatever formal response to the Special Counsel he may or may…
A Free-Standing Facility I was listening to a television advertisement for a private cancer clinic. I find it mildly distressing that there is a need for specialized cancer centers, but the need must exist if someone has spent the money to make cancer treatment a for-profit enterprise. I’m not sure what it says that these centers need to advertise. Do people with cancer want to be pitched? Isn’t cancer the infamous C-word which is not…
The Chill in the Air As I walked my 200 steps to work today, I was reminded that the winds in lower Manhattan get pretty crazy through the canyons of buildings. It is pretty much windy all year long, but today it was windy with a distinct chill of the impending season. It was sunny and the sky was blue, like waking up in the Dolomites or Alps in the morning, but the Weather…
OK Boomer I see the New York Times has just declared “OK Boomer” to be the war cry of Generation Z as it battles against the generational opportunity injustices foisted upon it by the Baby Boom Generation. I wrote of this in my Global Pension Crisis book in 2013, so I will except that here. We are living in what Esquire magazine recently called The Worst Generation: “The Baby Boomers are the most self‐centered, self‐seeking,…
Donna Azucar In 1974 I was a student at Cornell majoring in Economics and Government. My studies had taken a decided focus on development economics and third-world government. It’s not complicated, my mother was a UN diplomat living in Rome and serving as a director of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). She was the dominant force in my life, my role model, my muse. I assume I wanted to follow in her footsteps. …
One Fine Day Again I am staring out across New York Harbor at the Verrazano Bridge from my dining room table. It is the last week of October and we are an hour from sunset, so its that loveliest time of day. I wandered home, walking the entire half block along State Street with a pleasant breeze blowing. There is not a cloud in the sky and the water is just mildly choppy, just enough…
Taking a Day I am something in between a workaholic and a lazy bastard. I truly do not know which of the extremes is more prevalent. I know I have worked for forty-three years mostly non-stop. I had several instances when I could have and perhaps should have reasonably taken a break from work of something like six months. There was always something that drove me to keep working or, most often, jump into my…