It’s impossible to spend time in a place as naturally beautiful as New Zealand and not find yourself obsessed with nature. So this week’s email is staying on that theme and sadly, it’s not optimistic. Folks, I recommend you take up scuba diving. Fast. Because soon there won’t be much to see beneath the surface…
Howie is amongst the last 100,000 of his breed, the New Zealand kiwi bird. If you think 100,000 of a species is a lot, let me enlighten you. It isn’t. At their peak there were 12 million kiwi birds but over a century of ” progress” – including the introduction of feral dogs, feral cats, rats etc. to…
You get on a cross-country flight and sit down. Next to you is an empty seat. You stare at it, knowing it’s soon to be occupied and the occupant will greatly determine the next five hours of your life. Will they be loud? Obnoxious? Drunk? Just plain old stupid? One thing you can almost guarantee, they won’t be Stephen…
“There’s a fire starting in my heart. Reaching a fever pitch, it’s bringing me out the dark.” The opening lyric of Rolling in the Deep – one of the great songs, off one of the great albums of the past decade, Adele 21. How could a then 21 year-old girl from London find the musical connection for everyone…
I missed how great Frank Sinatra was. Growing up in the Bronx, in the 60s, I was a rock n’ roller. The Beatles. Stones. Zeppelin. Pink Floyd. I didn’t know about In the Wee Small Hours or I’ll Be Around or Lady is a Tramp. Where were the guitars? Where was the sound? Recently, after seeing Alex Gibney’s remarkable HBO doc…
A few months ago I wrote about “Infrastructural Insanity”. That piece focused on our roads, airports and energy systems, all of which are in various states of disrepair. (Evidenced by this week’s piece in The Wall Street Journal.) This week, Volume II, looks at our nation’s crumbling bridges. On March 21st, The Today Show reported that almost 60,000 bridges in this country (54,985 to…
I believe life is played on four stages. The first stage is youth. Joy, promise, hope, endless opportunity. We were ripping down the highway in our ’69 Chevy. Hair blowing in the wind. Rock and roll screaming from the radio. Friends came and went. Every day felt historic. The Beatles on Ed Sullivan, Kennedy’s death, Armstrong…
My daughter recently sent me a link to one of the best love stories I’ve ever read. It didn’t, however, have the traditional structure of guy meets girl, guy loses girl, guy finds girl again and they both live happily ever after. This is the story of a guy and a penguin. From an article in Metro UK:…
“If you build it, he will come.” In Field of Dreams, a movie that speaks to guys of every age, Ray Kinsella heard a voice in an Iowa cornfield. “If you build it, he will come,” the voice said. The “build” referred to plowing that cornfield and replacing it with a baseball park. The “he” was the ghost…
Call the bank. Call your cable company. Call your airline. Call just about anybody you’re doing business with and what do you get? Automation. Press 1 for this, 2 for that & 3 to stay on hold for the next 90 minutes. That little robot is eating our lunch. When you discuss this with people, they generally regard…