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I am big reader of trends….trying to ascertain from newspaper articles which way the winds of change are blowing. A story a few days ago in the WSJ pointed to a new industry that’s having trouble…the Strip Club business. The two largest publicly-traded strip club operators are Rick’s and VCG, […]
Yesterday I dove back into Jeffrey Tayler’s marvelous new book about his trek across the wildlands of the former USSR, called “Murderers in Mausoleums.” At this point in his long journey he has reached Urumqi, China, a large city where many races mix. There are the usual Han Chinese, who […]
In Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been declared the Presidential election’s winner. The city took down the internet and blocked text messages, according to an AP story and protesters have been throwing rocks and making fires in the streets, tangling with black-clad police. When I visited Iran in November, I asked […]
I remember a story that a cook told me when I used to work out on Nantucket. “One time Roger Penske was here on the island with the chairman of Toyota,” he said. “He couldn’t speak any English but he liked the lobster I made for them.” My friend said […]
I sat at the bar at the Lady Killigrew and watched the Sox on a flat-screen, high def TV. I was waiting for Steve, who had taken the scenic route over on his scooter, enjoying the vistas of the late afternoon sun on Blue Meadow Road. Outside people were sitting […]
Being a restaurant owner is tough. I read in today’s Boston Herald about a good intentioned chef owner of a high-end Italian place in Braintree who got punished by his customers for trying to recoup some of the costs of providing glasses of water to diners. Joe Viola figured out […]
It’s been a weird Spring. It is almost never warm and sunny; instead we get these dregs of what feels like March, or the bluster and overcast skies of late fall. I am sure that I am joined by all of the citizens of Massachusetts in wishing that it would […]
Last night while Cindy was on the phone I grabbed the TV remote and surfed to a program about chickens. It was all about the chicken business, and about people who love these creatures dearly. One Virginia man rhapsodized about the funny noises his backyard flock emits, and how he […]
Smokers are getting boxed in even more tightly. A story in last night’s WSJ said that Congress is poised to put the tobacco industry under the regulation of the FDA. To some people in the business, this actually is a huge win for tobacco’s biggest company, Altria, because it freezes […]
As I sat in my parent’s backyard in the dappled Sunday sunlight, we talked about what we liked, and what we felt about our lives. I felt lucky to be thinking excitedly about going back to work the next day, and how great it is to love what you do […]
We drove up to Chris and Susan’s farm to celebrate his 57th birthday, and arrived to a porch full of people sipping wine and mingling with dogs and cats. On the grounds of their 17-acre farm were a parade of baby donkeys, a freshly shorn llama and a bevy of […]
I never knew that there were so many different kinds of ice, and that the ice makes a huge difference in how a drink tastes. I learned this last night as I was falling asleep and read an article by Wayne Curtis in the Atlantic. He cites a NYC bar […]