The Rich, Duped, Missed the Good Parties
Some friends came for a weekend visit to Cindy’s and they brought Friday’s Wall Street Journal. This fat paper is always full of good stuff, it’s hard to get through the whole thing. I found a funny item about the proliferation of food festivals, and how the rich are missing […]
Brad Shepard and Barney: Radio Next Week
Brad Shepard emailed me last week, recalling that I’d left him a voicemail. I left that message two months ago, but hey, I’m glad he called. Brad does the morning show on WHYN-AM 560, my favorite radio station. I’ll be chatting about the GoNOMAD Cafe on Monday morning at 8:05 […]
Go Tigah!
Richard Sandomir writes in the Times: “In the midst of Ed Bradley’s worshipful two-part profile of Tiger Woods on “60 Minutes” last Sunday, I wondered if it was an infomercial or if Woods had paid a fee for these adoring 25 minutes. With nothing new to report — and not […]
Who Picks the Songs for the Idols?
MTV writes about song choices on American Idol. “There’s style and song arrangement, both overseen by professionals hired by the show. Some have argued the importance of camera time, which is, of course, out of a contestant’s control. And there’s song selection, the one true strategic element in the “Idol” […]
Forest Saved; Good News from the South
A day of running around meeting with bookkeepers and signmakers…and when I got a moment, I sat in the window of the cafe and read the Republican. Buried deep way way back, in the sports section, was this important news for the environment. Two conservation groups will buy 218,000 acres […]
Justice Scalia: You Watch Too Many Sopranos’
In a letter to the editor of the Boston Herald, an almost unheard-of step for a Supreme Court justice, Justice Antonin Scalia said a reporter misinterpreted the gesture he made when she asked whether his participation in Sunday’s special Mass for lawyers might cause some people to question his impartiality […]
With Whom Would She Eat Those Lean Cuisines?
I went to the supermarket early this morning. On the way, I stopped by my cafe, and met a fellow business owner strolling down the sidewalk. “Come on in for a coffee,” I offered, but he didn’t break his stride. I spied him later carrying a to-go cup from the […]
Paying Tribute to the Ultimate Mensch
I read the obituaries regularly. Some times one sticks out, like this one I saw today on Boston.com, titled “the Ultimate Mensch.” Sam Allis wrote about James O. Freedman, former president of Dartmouth, who died of cancer recently. “I first him met over a decade ago, when I covered education […]
Cooking Ahead, Almost as Good as Making Dinner
I hit another WiFi coffeehouse today in Northampton, MA. I sat at a big table with five others, three of whom also typed into their laptops. But I couldn’t get a signal, so I had to write this and post it later. There was a story in the NY Times […]
You Mean, We Won’t Be Rich Some Day?
What Eduardo Porter writes in today’s NY Times will disappoint many readers my age. He says that there will be much less money from our parents to inherit than we think. “While some forecasters still hope that the vast pool of wealth accumulated by the generations born in the first […]
Eric Suher is a Friend Again
It’s Sunday morning, and I’m typing at Rao’s Coffee a big coffeehouse in Amherst. I am seeing how these guys do it, so I can bring back some wisdom to my own little cafe. Last night I spoke cordially with an old nemesis: it felt great to be back in […]
Go Deep, Young Man, and Find It
Wendy Boswell is a genius who knows all about web stuff. Below is her advice on finding the “Deep Web,” with 500 times the amount of web pages catalogued by Google. “That’s one of the tricks you can use to find Invisible Web content – just put the word “database” […]
Wal-Mart Might be the Tipping Point for Organics
At the cafe, we buy all of the local papers, so today I browsed the Greenfield Recorder, and found a significant story about Wal-Mart. The headline ‘Wal-Mart Goes Organic,’ meant a tipping point will soon be reached. The stores are throwing their massive weight behind purchasing only wild-caught fish that […]
A Silver Vibrator to Drum Up Subscriptions
From the archives of Zinester, I found this interesting item about a new subscriber gift from a French magazine. Good Vibrations: When the December issue of Jalouse hit Paris newsstands Friday, it came polybagged with a gift that the publisher believes is a first in the industry: a silver-plated vibrator. […]
A Bright Kid Who You’d be Crazy Not to Hire
The interns who work with us a GoNOMAD are often quite successful when they leave us and move out of Amherst and into the real world. A few years ago, we had Amanda Denz as an intern. She was the best writer I’d seen of all the interns over the […]
Our Outdoor Cafe: What I’ve Always Hoped For
Random musings: Woke up early today, again, and padded downstairs to bake the quickbreads for the cafe. It feels great to offer banana bread and other homemade treats at the GoNOMAD Cafe. Since I arrive there at about 7 and stay until at least 7, I am pretty much working […]
Fox to Newscasters–Wear Red White and Blue
Believe it or not, the news anchors and reporters at the Fox-owned station WFLD Channel 32 were ordered by their boss to wear flashy clothes — preferably “red white and blue.” Robert Feder writes in today’s Chicago Sun Times. In an internal memo obtained by this column, Andrew Finlayson, the […]
The Pot Hottie: Justice Favors the Cute
Today’s NY Post screamed a headline that was irresistable: “The Pot Hottie Breathes Freedom.” “Prosecutors said Julia Diaco, 20,dealt to undercover officers eight times, with her biggest deal $650 worth of cocaine, and would ply her wares on and around the NYU campus, including Washington Square Park. When she was […]