$16 million for your thoughts, no January blog, West Wing, February blues, a book, much more…

February 01, 2026

The weather outside is (still) frightful

Brrr. Hope you all kept warm during that last thing. And it returned with more frigidity. Colder than a banker’s foreclosure smile. Than a well-digger’s shovel. 20 below wind chill. We kept the inside water running at Wise Acres; better a higher water bill than burst or frozen pipes. Been there.

*Warming trend coming…along with the water bill. Not complaining.*

Cabinet doors to sinks were open, still are. Frozen pipes avoided so far. The sump pump discharge froze up, so waited until a relatively warm(er) day to free that up so we could do laundry. Power stayed on as the ice storms slid farther south than Kansas, and east. No glaciers melting around here, though.

Just checked the weather and it’s going to be below zero tonight. Then it ramps up from there into daylight 30s and 40s. Dang near tropical. BTW, here’s a link to the best advice I’ve seen and it comes from Louisiana. (Link)

Never open with the weather. Sorry, Elmore.* Sorry faithful readers.

10 Rules of Writing. Elmore Leonard

No blog in January?

But, not to ignore it altogether, here’s a token look back at its first day from Ted Kooser’s The Wheeling Year, A Poet’s Field book (Link)

“It’s New Year’s Day and the future backs up, beeping with cheer, and closes its iron maw on the past. And then, with its massive hydraulics, it crushes the last year, mushing all the days together.Then it lumbers away, groaning and leaking, the scraps of the good times flapping farewell from the edges.”

The epigraph to this book is both biblical and poetic: “One day tells its tale to another.” Psalm 19

The slim book has about 20 short poetic entries for each month and each one is a wonder. I return to it time and again, whatever the month or the season. It gets five round bales from the Wise Acres Reading Forum for its wisdom, beauty and daily breath-take-awayness.

The case for no term limits

For the series West Wing, anyway. It ran from 1999 to 2006, and now Netflix has the whole massively award-winning episodic filibuster. I watch an episode or two a night, and am floored by the acting, the one and two and three-liners, the heart and soul, pathos, outright laughs, life lessons, kindness, cruelty, deep human-ness, on and on.

*Donation receipt from the Washington National Monument Society. Tall orders get done when the West Wing is involved…*

I’d forgotten how much I liked this series a few years ago, but I recall that I’d wished our then present white house housed people like the series. The thing is, it probably did. The creep level in any given admin is probably high, as is the cool level. It’s a microcosm of our country.

Good minds, not-so-hot minds, mix it up until they figure it all out. The government is run sloppily, or better than that. Surprising presidents like Jimmy Carter, who seem ideal in some ways, will probably pop up, historically, as a lukewarm leader. Same as Obama and Bush. Clinton? Nixon? LBJ? No, Carter had standards.

If anyone had suggested a West Wing Two, say in 2007, somehow hinting at the actual events of the last few Trump-Biden-Trump years, it would be tossed as unbelievable. “Come back with a script that’s not so sci-fi or Kafkaesque and has real people, and we’ll look at it.”

Meanwhile, I’ll watch West Wing nightly and to heck with term limits on that series. I missed a lot of the original episodes. Thanks, Netflix and Aaron Sorkin and Martin Sheen and all the rest of you guys; truly a job well done.

February Blues

And other music. This time of year I find that a helping of Rhapsody In Blue (Link) and some French Market Coffee with chicory does wonders for my outlook on a cold gray morning. Links to R.J.Ronqillo (Link) and Trouble In Mind with some slide/resonator magic; TajMo: Keb Mo and Tajmahal and Room on the Porch, (Link) at the Grand Old Opry, and a short slice of Jesse Davis guitar solo (Link) (he played with Tajmahal a lot during his all too short stay on earth—I include him in case you’ve not heard him, and once you have, you’ll look him up. Indigenous genius, So, links provided above in bold near the artists’ names. Enjoy. I’ll be rhapsodizing right along with you.

$16,764,500 for your thoughts

And you thought we were all done with pennies. So did I. I did wonder if any, maybe 5 or 6, were going to be earmarked as the actual last ones, therefore making them rare coins. But this latest deal from the mint surpasses that.

Art news tells us (Link) that “Stack’s Bowers Galleries, the nation’s premier auction house for rare coins, set a record that is unlikely to ever be broken, selling 696 2025-dated cents or “pennies” for more than $16 million.”

Gallery President Brian Kendrella said, “They captured the public imagination like few rare coins we’ve ever handled.” In fact the numismatists so crowded the website that the servers got fried and the auction was postponed until it was back online. For less than seven bucks’ worth of pennies. 696 of them.

Another car dealer heard from

In days of automobile yore, you bucked the big three at great peril—now, everyone does it. And they all seem to have pretty good reasons and products. If only everything out there could be bought for under 100k, the maker might have a shot at selling them.

*Good movie. I think I’ll get the DVD, watch it again…*

I was in high school when the Tucker tried to become a garage-hold word in the fifties. I saw one in KC’s Brookside; it had a neon sign in the back window: “You have just been passed by a Tucker.” I loved the derring-do, the audacity. I didn’t see another one for thirty some years; I was working at Saatchi & Saatchi in Los Angeles and I used to come in early, about 5am. That morning, in the lobby, a pale metallic blue Tucker sat under the lobby lights like a shimmering dream. They had brought it there in the night as a prop for the Jeff Bridges movie, Tucker, The Man and His Dream, (Link) a 1980’s movie that Saatchi was advertising through its many Hollywood contacts. The Coppola-directed movie dramatized just why you didn’t take on Detroit and the Big Three automakers. At that time.

Note: I was working on Toyota, anathema to the three afore-mentioned car manufacturers. We did good.

Anyway, the way was paved for any Tom, Dick or Elon with a few hundred million burning in their pockets to jump into the ring. Hence Rivian, Tesla, and a host of others. The car shown above in the main pic is an Olympian, the newest of the bunch. Here’s their website (Link). See what you think.

And that, dear G-Blog readers is that

The exhaust pipe end of the Jan-Feb edition. Stay warm and safe. Remember those who depend on the shelters to get inside to warmth and safety. The people who watch out for others are overextended in this kind of weather. Humans and animals need their help, and ours. Thanks.

Top baby names of 2025, Dog of the South, plastic coins we once used, six-seven explained…again, KC rocks south, final year of an icon, a transportative video and much more…

December 02, 2025

Didn’t see my name in the top ten baby names of 2025

Or in the top 1,000 for that matter. (Link) Or in the yearly MacArthur “Genius” grants for a million bucks, either. Always a shocker.

*The Judge. Son of Joseph and Aimee (Brichaut) Guinotte, early KC settlers…*

Guinotte, my first name, is an old family last name. French Belgian. Judge Jules Guinotte, my great-grandfather and democrat judge (elected) for 37 years, was extolled as an honest politician (now, an accepted contradiction of terms, that) who also risked reelection by coming out against the corrupt Pendergast Machine, KC’s answer to Tammany Hall. Cool guy, this judge. He hunted with a Kentucky Long Rifle. Raced boats on the Little Blue and Missouri Rivers.

He once said, “A man is not poor who has a good bed,” and I agree, when I hit the hay at night, exhausted by current treatments.

I cast off his good name, though, went by Butch at an early age, through grade school, high school, college, and into adulthood.

It was easier than defending Guinotte to any number of young toughs who questioned the legitimacy of names they decreed not normal, a losing game. If your name passed muster, your corduroy pants would not. Or your yankee accent down south. Or after relaxing into south-speak, your accent further north. Onward. No moral here.

“Nothing I like to do pays well.”

*Older edition of this. Funniest book I ever read…*

Charles Portis said that. Marvelous author, Mr. Portis; I can’t believe he didn’t like to write, and that he wasn’t paid well for it, but maybe not.

I went through a Portis Period, read everything I could find by him, and he always made me laugh and marvel at his sentence structure, his effortless-seeming connections and ear for working-class American-speak that never belittled, only authenticated. Portis kept one reading long after most books tired one into yawning submission, setting them down for later.

The author of True Grit, he also wrote Dog of the South, (Link) my very favorite, and a bunch of others, all quite enjoyable. I can’t recommend him highly enough. I just finished his Norwood for maybe the third time. I think I’ll try to find a first edition of Dog. It made me laugh on every page.

A mill for your thoughts

*Plastic mill. You couldn’t even buy a penny candy with ten of them…*

I remember plastic ‘mills,’ red and green ones, in Missouri; you’d get them in change at the cash register in the 1950’s. Sales tax tokens.Their stated worth was, I believe, one tenth of a penny or something like that; worthless even if you had a stack of them. I doubt they were missed when they went the way of our Lincoln copper (clad) penny, RIP in 2025, just weeks ago.

BUT, and here’s a thought: why not reinstate them as pennies? Not as Lincoln pennies, that’d be an insult to him, but, instead, put some geek politician on them; half one major party, half the other.

Recycled plastic might solve the concern about rounding up or down to a nickel (if one can believe the news, they say such a concern exists, costing businesses millions or billions, if, indeed, businesses eat the cost).

1943 Pennies were made of steel during WWII, due to the cost and wartime use of copper; some such pennies go for ten bucks or more now, in good shape. Don’t bother collecting 2025 last pennies, though. They made billions of them.

Just a thought.

Six of one, seven of the other

*Are you ever at sixes and sevens? These days, many are…*

The six/seven thing, solved. For me, anyway. Middle schoolers don’t have a clue as some kid just picked up a stray phrase from a TikTok rap song that, in itself, is meaningless, and that’s the point. Whatever meaning it had for the rapper is long gone and now it serves one purpose; to have a piece of language that baffles adults.

Wikipedia tells us that a similar phrase, "to set the world on six and seven", is used by Geoffrey Chaucer in Troilus and Criseyde. It dates from the mid-1380s and seems from its context to mean "to hazard the world" or "to risk one's life"

There are a lot of explanations for “6-7” but the one that I prefer is one that springs from something I read 50 or 60 years ago; I recalled having seen the phrase, “…they were at sixes and sevens about it” and looked it up. It means disarray, confusion. To use it in a sentence I might say, “The Kansas City Chiefs were at sixes and sevens during the Buffalo game.” And I don’t mean TDs or TDs with extra points.

Shakespeare used it. It’s been around for hundreds of years. I read it in a novel in my twenties and understood it immediately. And I would imagine it is now, again, a thing of the past, and that juveniles have moved on to something less cringeworthy to get a rise from adults.

Famous Book heading to OOP Out Of Print

*The phone is a technological modern marvel compared to the stuff around it. Some old phonebooks hang from the mouthpiece…*

The 2026 Farmers Almanac needs no introduction, but its outro is cloaked in mystery. The revered icon is being discontinued (Link) in print (and digital) form this year but not much is being said about it. And no enterprising retro-head or group is considering picking it up.

Left is a copy from 1989 on an old telephone—it’s a wall of really old stuff, Civil War pieces, etc. I bought that phone in the 1960’s in Iowa. I think I paid twelve bucks for it.

Well, the almanac had a decent run, having started in 1792, (or 1810, depending on your info source) and any outfit that would buy it would probably just chunk it into the AI machine. Anyway I ordered the hardback edition for posterity. (Link) (Posterity means garage sale of the future) Sorry to see it go.

Hot Cornbread Rock

The North Mississippi Allstars play unusual instrumentation (is that washboard really electric?!) like whiffle bats instead of drumsticks in this video (Link) which speaks to drinking muddy water and sleeping in hollow logs, a recurring theme of the extremely thirsty and the overly tired in backroads music. But what a band!

There’s a quite catchy rinky-tink chuckle sound from a slide (tin can?) guitar that defies the usual slidyness, and plenty of other ear and eye grabbers to go around. I, for one, love it. This band will be in KC at Knuckleheads, April 17, 2026, if you’re near the area.

Then comes Blackberry Smoke and more slidey guitar, more fantastic southern rock (Link) and these folks will be at the Uptown in KC on their Rattle, Ramble and Roll Tour, March 22, 2026, 7pm. Lynrd is smiling somwhere.

And a quiet, transportive video to wrap it up

This is Kismet (Link). I won’t say much about it as it speaks for itself rather eloquently. It’s a three minute beauty with a beginning, a middle and an end. I’ve watched it half a dozen times, and it’s, well, just really nice. Thank Monos luggage and their agency, Doubleday & Cartwright, for not filling it up with copy and sell. When you have a moment go to their website—their stores are actual statements. Anyway, this is such a fine, fine piece.

*Click on the link in the text above the scene…then you’ll be directed to “Kismet.” I bet you go back and watch it more than once…*

What can I say after that? Merry Christmas. Thanks for you. xoxo G-man

(Everything is connected)

Nanci Griffith & Gillian Welch: two voices missed. Merit badge memories, books, November seed art, the Great American Drive-in, The Bee Man, more…

November 03, 2025

Out of uniform

*My sash had maybe 3 badges. One was woodworking as I recall…*

As a Tulsa Boy Scout I wore the shirt to meetings but with jeans, loafers, no sash with merit badges as I had earned only a few. The kid who showed up in pressed BSA mufti head to toe was the scoutmaster’s son. He had a full sash of merit badges, and was probably working on another.

We underachievers (a small but fierce group) clung to an independence that, had there been a brig or stockade (and the scoutmaster would have been fully onboard for such) we’d have been in it, bread and water status.

When I figured out my folks wouldn’t notice if I just stopped attending, I…stopped attending. But before this happened, we were subjected to a 20-mile hike. I showed up in PF Fliers and jeans.

*20-mile hike-wear for the disaffected Boy Scout…*

The SM called me out, pointed at my worn sneakers and said “He won’t make it five miles.” He lifted one of his rather new-looking, mirror-polished mil-spec combat boots and made some remarks about readiness in the field. “Hut two thrip foah” started our hike, but that dropped off quickly. I had expected cadence count (You had a good home and you left, you’re right) sound-off militarism, but that didn’t happen.

What did happen is, at the 12-mile mark, I plodded on past the hapless scoutmaster, who was sitting off the roadway, boots and socks off, angry blisters on his heels. He was whisked away by a checkup vehicle. I made the 20 with my underachieving pals in our sneakers, and we were picked up by designated parents and hauled home. No adverse effects on the feet of the out-of-uniform group. End of tale.

The Bitter Southerner has a Tsundoku shirt

And now I know what it means.

Short version: Japanese for stockpiling books TBR but maybe not reading them.

Not right away, sometimes not ever.

I’m a Tsundoku-ist and the fact there’s a shirt about it means I’m not the only one. How about you? Hey, if the shirt fits.

Back to The Bitter Southerner—it’s a site worth exploring, and their magazine is pretty nice, too (latest cover, left). Both are well-written and art directed.

And they own up to a duality/darker southern history while trying to make things better.

Take a look. (Link)

What does this photo say to you?

Drive-ins were a rite of passage back in the 50s. This one is obviously in L.A. or somewhere in S. Cal. but the big screen says something to many of us, wherever we live.

The ones that are still up are background to swap meets and weekend sales but some of those still show movies and, once you’re settled in your car, speaker on the windowsill, tub of popcorn, Cokes, maybe a beer or two, the giant faces appear and the night closes around you. Only the headlights of a late arrival and subsequent horn-honks interrupted this peculiar magic some of us grew up with.

*My KC favorite, The Boulevard Drive In, still going strong and showing good flicks, too…*

Just so you know, we thought the “Let’s all go to the snack bar” (Link) cartoons were corny even back then. We sang them and snickered on the way to the concession stand.

And sometimes we forgot the speaker was on the door and drove off, popping the cord, and taking it with us. It was an honest mistake as it could damage the car door and who needs that?

And, they say, some kids snuck into the movies free, by hiding in the trunk, while the driver and a friend played nonchalant and paid for two. They say.

*This screenshot is static—to see video click on link in text below. The hives are alive with the sound of honey…*

Putting the Bee back in Britain

This buzz-worthy video speaks for itself as do the actions of its subject, true beeliever, Matt Somerville. His mission to save and house the busy pollinators in a more natural fashion that suits the bees’ needs, is working wonders. Maybe some of his bee huts will spring up in the USA. It’s not just a hobby; for him it’s a life’s work. (Link) Had I seen this in my younger days, a couple of these might have cropped up at Wise Acres. Pass it on for the bees, please.

Seed art

It’s here because I liked it a lot. So did my silversmith better half; she uses such gifts of nature as inspiration and it shows up as earrings and pendants. Pretty Novemberish, too. These intricate sculptures are captured by photographer Levon Biss in close-ups and well worth a look here at Moss & Fog, so drop in and see more at this (Link).

Books; McGuane, HST’s kid, and Mary Oliver

*Tsundoku aside, I’ve read the McGuane and the Thompson, Oliver next on the TBR stack…*

It’s an occasion for me when a Thomas McGuane book hits the market. A Wooded Shore seemed familiar, as I had read three of the stories in The New Yorker but I always re-read this guy anyway.The word for him is inimitable. Dark and funny. (Link)

Then, Hunter Thompson’s son, Juan, has a toddler-to-teen-to-grown-up perspective on the icon in Stories I Tell Myself; hard to read sometimes, but what did I think? That a drug-addled alcoholic genius would raise a kid normally? Sad, yet with an overtone of parent/child resolution. (Link)

Pulitzer-winning poet Mary Oliver’s Devotions is a compendium of over 50 years’ worth of her poetry; (Link) I ordered this book after devouring her bestselling A Thousand Mornings, (Link) a much slimmer book, also recommended. In fact, I suggest starting with the latter, if not familiar with her work.

Two ladies with haunting voices and Pentatonix (why these three?)

I miss the first two. Gillian Welch and Nanci Griffith; one always brought to mind the other.

Their music reminds me of gospel and ancient folk tunes from the hollows of Appalachia, echoes of which you hear on PBS’s WoodSongs Old Time Radio Hour. Watch it sometime if you don’t already. It’s a down home, bluegrass hour from Kentucky.

*Check out the gospel song she wrote,* ***“By The Mark”(Link)***…

The bluegrass grew tall when “Daddy sang bass, mama sang tenor, me and little brother would join right in there” on the front porch that electrified the air for hours with banjo, fiddle, slide guitar and harmonies that make you close your eyes to listen harder.

Gillian does a front porch thing while singing, keeping time on her own self in “Six White Horses” with Dave Rawlings. (Link)

Her body-percussive moves made me think of Pentatonix and their totally a capella performances where any “music” is made either that way, or by their amazing range of voices. (Link)

Then Nanci Griffith brings her high, sweet pathos to “Lone Star State of Mind.” (Link)

Change the law, not the clocks

A 2022 CBS News/YouGov poll found that nearly 80% of Americans supported changing the current system instead of the nation’s clocks. (Probably that many say let’s end this gov shutdown, too.) Apparently the lawmakers and politicians don’t care what Americans want. That’s the takeaway I get after years of useless clock change which has been found to be physically detrimental to the human bio-system. For what it’s worth, here’s a petition you can sign: (Link)

And that’s that. We wish you a good November and a fine Thanksgiving. XXXOOO g-man

Roll ‘em (1,400 oranges!), Zadie Smith, Wheeled/Winged beauty, A Message for the times: Hey, It’s All Right, The gentlest graffiti, Rodeo vis-à-vis writing, books, much more…

September 28, 2025

First things first. Oranges.

*Roll ‘em. The thunder of oranges coming to a big gulp container near you. Good, and good for you…*

I won’t even make the pun from “Orange You Glad, etc,” or not all of it anyway. When we were kids in Tulsa, thirsty kids, we went to the Orange Julius and slammed OJ until burpage. Man, was it good!

Especially after a popcorn-and Duds-consuming movie. Orange Julius since 1920 (even predates me!) and still in biz today! This was what summer Saturdays were made for, OJ with sugar and egg whites (to smooth out the acidic citrus taste and make it, oh so, palatable) and, later, vacant lot baseball until dusk and fireflies.

This article about “Feel the Peel” (thanks again Moss & Fog!) was the reminder for all that, but how fascinating this would have been back then or any time. I’d go now just to be in the action. I can taste it.

Come to KC, Feel The Peel, and your 1,400 oranges! (Link)

The gentlest graffiti

Robert Janz (they call him the disappearing artist) paints with water. So what if he paints on buildings? The “graffiti” are gone in a matter of seconds.

Gentle souls make gentle marks, quick beauty, catch it while you can. He works in typography a lot and if you follow him, follow closely and bring a camera. Talent vs. time is his calling card and he moves on. Here today, gone today. But well-worth seeing. (Link)

The 4-minute Vimeo seems to stress the fact that all art is impermanent, something the art world is loathe to admit, but there it is. Someday, the Mona Lisa may be dust, or worse, stolen and trashed somewhere; Van Goghs, Basquiats and Caravaggios will be available only in books, if the visuals even survive. That’s apocalypse, especially to Sotheby and those billionaire collectors. Janz takes impermanence to a fare-thee-well. Hi art. Bye art. Now you see it. Don’t blink.

Books I’m reading or have read

Ok, here are four. 1. Dan Brown’s Secret of Secrets (Link) was…exhausting. Propulsive, yes, something dire happened every other page. Historically interesting, yes, the guy out-researches any author in the business. Writes a heck of a book too. The pages were a bit thin, hard to separate; but that was a money decision of Penguin Random House. I was glad to finish this tech-on-steroids tome, mostly located in Prague, but see why it’s #1.

Its epigraph is striking. And telling. (The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries. Nikola Tesla) Hmm.

2. Oklahoma Tough, My Father, King of the Tulsa Bootlegggers (Link) by Ron Padgett, a contemporary of mine while growing up in Tulsa. I tricked myself into this one. I once read something by Padgett Powell, not Ron Padgett, that I liked a lot, and in looking it up, could only remember the name Padgett. This book struck a chord, as my family had a regular bootlegger in dry 40’s Tulsa, who drove a Cadillac Yellow Cab, and dropped off name brand hooch once a week, like the milkman delivered dairy products. Well, while a rousing tale it didn’t give me my anticipated Padgett Powell fix, because Ron Padgett. You might dig it.

3. Jim Harrison, Songs of Unreason (Link) I was glad to find a book I’d not read by one of my favorite authors and it’s a delight; contrapuntal short and longer poems placed untitled short, left page, longer and titled, right page. It’s a beautiful sequence and pure Harrison. My favorite book of the four. Many re-reads anticipated.

4. Billy Collins, Ballistics (Link) Up to his old tricks of unexpected nuance but all new approaches to it. Zingers and bullseyes, he fires from the hip and forms ever tighter patterns of meaning. I enjoyed it immensely. I will return, as I do to all his books.

Unabashedly stolen from The New Yorker’s “Zadie Smith, How to write an essay.” The best explanation this word burglar has ever seen.

“An English teacher took me (Zadie’s words) aside and drew a rectangle on a piece of paper, placed a shooting arrow on each corner of the rectangle, plus one halfway along the horizontal top line, and a final arrow, in the same position, down below.”

“Six points,” this teacher said. “Going clockwise, first arrow is the introduction, last arrow is the conclusion. Got that?” I got that. He continued,

“Second arrow is you basically developing whatever you said in the intro. Third arrow is you either developing the point further or playing devil’s advocate. Fourth arrow, you’re starting to see the finish line, so start winding down, start summarizing. Fifth arrow, you’re one step closer to finished, so repeat the earlier stuff but with variations. Sixth arrow, you’re on the home straight: you’ve reached the conclusion. Bob’s your uncle. That’s really all there is to it.”

I had the sense I was being let into this overworked teacher’s inner sanctum, that he had drawn this little six-arrowed rectangle himself, upon his own exam papers, long ago. “Oh, and remember to put the title of the essay in that box. That’ll keep you focussed.”

And a message song

For all of us who have let the oompa loompas and the flying monkeys of politics into the doorway of our minds; sweep ‘em out. Because, hey, it’s all right, despite their worst efforts. Like the song says, lend a hand, hydrate, don’t be ashamed of the car you drive, and you’ve still got something to say. Well, maybe I said hydrate; it gets rid of toxins. Plenty of those going around. Link to music video, The Traveling Wilburys’ To The End of the Line. Uplifting in a time of need.

*This is a static visual—clicking on it won’t do anything. Click on the link in the text above it. There ya go, now you’re connecting…*

Well, that’s about it for this Sept/Oct batch. There’s a piece I wrote that was picked up by Hooghly Review a few days ago—here’s a link if interested. And a feast for the eyeballs, a sculpture I wish I’d done, here’s that link. But I think that’s all quite enough. You’ve got stuff to do and so do I. As usual, thank you so much for dropping by and looking in.

Remember the song, and take it easy on yourself. It’ll confound the wing-nuts who want you all stirred up. Be good to yourself and a few others. XXXXOOOO G-man

Chuck E Cheese, Going Crackers over a Barrel, Bubbles, Change, Music and, yes, more.

August 31, 2025

AI, Nvidia, Y2K and other wildly overhyped bubble rap.

*A pope popping bubblewrap. Holy commotion, batkids…*

Got this from Forbes: “Bubbles burst not because the story is completely wrong, but because around the margins the story is wrong,” says Rob Arnott, founder and chairman of California-based investment advisor Research Affiliates. “The story of the rate of growth, the time horizon of growth, is unrealistically optimistic, and the risk of competition eroding market share is underestimated.”

Pop! Then the market nosedives wildly and “corrects.”

In time. Theoretically. The theory that stock bubbles bursting can resolve themselves gradually is a bit of that whole pipedream. What about the “hard landing?” Did you know Nvidia counts for over 8% of the entire S&P 500? Whoa doggies. Didn’t they used to call it crashing when corporate jets “landed hard?” On that note, guess I won’t invest the family fortune in Nvidia. Or Crypto. Or any of those pretty bubbles in the air, floating around. Even if there was a family fortune. But you can do some pretty funny stuff with AI, BTW (Link)

Anyone want to do a fashion shoot at Wise Acres?

*That red clawfoot tub in the jungle, and a wash basin. Weedeater (or chainsaw) provided…*

It’s about 40 acres of pastures with stuff. Outbuildings, trees, wilderness, openness, sculptures, ramshackle structures in adjoining pastures, weathered wood, a junkyard, couple of photogenic dogs, and a red clawfoot tub in a jungle. Come on, Prada, it’s time you got outdoors. You, too, Louis V. And you, Rag and Bone, get outa the city for awhile.

Barns, loafing sheds, corrals, ponds, priced attractively. Craft services. Drones. Hey, we shot a music video out here and some of it was shown on GMA. Not bad for country.

Maybe we’ll go public and do a sculpture garden, photo-opp IPO. You reading this, Warren?

What’s up with Chuck E. Cheese?

Nate Bargatze has a funny routine on it; check it out first. (It’s only a minute or two. Link)

Then there’s this article on it if you’re game. (Link) In the scheme of things, Chuck E. doesn’t mean much to me, but it sure has its cult and collectors. They’re called Chuckheads. Really.

Can you imagine private stashes of Chuck E. mummified band members in storage facilities all over the U.S.? Seems we Americans will collect just about anything.

*Hey, Sally—they really really like me too…*

Forget Chuck E. The weird world went nuts when Cracker Barrel changed the logo! Now it’s back…

Jeezo capeezo, it’s not like it was a time-honored old-timey brand. Its major shareholder is BlackRock! I cannot, just can NOT get worked up about this one, but here’s a take on it (Link)

Trump even chimed in on it. Apparently the whole spectrum of right/left woke and maga found something they can agree on. It’s a start even if it’s crackers, in my opinion.

You want great southern food, go to a great (read real) southern restaurant, one whose staff thinks BlackRock is a mountain in a national park. You can find these restaurants in Wildsam’s trip guides. (Link) And the cracker barrels are full of fresh crackers.

**The ASE “pocket book” that catapulted The Great Gatsby off the bubble to its rightful position as The Great American Novel.**

*Great got greater when the troops got hold of it…*

This plain jane precursor to the famous postwar 25 cent “pocket books” is one of hundreds of ASE (Armed Services Editions Link) that were sent overseas in WWII to bored troops awaiting assigments. And that audience read; everything from Huckleberry Finn to The Postman Always Rings Twice. Over 1,300 ASE books included all the great authors of the time and even textbooks on subjects like electronics and mathematics.

The Great Gatsby was originally made available to troops as an action-packed crime story and possibly resulted in over a million readings.

This kicked off a postwar mission by untold numbers of English teachers in classrooms around the world to this very day to include it in high school and college courses. The Gatsby bubble is here to stay for awhile.

Change comes, stuff happens

Where’s the opportunity? When automobiles replaced carriages what did carriage-makers do? Maybe some went into the auto parts business. Gas stations.

*Me with my first model T and pith helmet…*

Remember desktop publishing? In the eighties I knew highly skilled typesetters well because I freelanced for Uppercase Type, wrote their newsletter (which they set and distributed). It was like a blog in type. “Journalism” from my journal. People liked it.

Uppercase thought about dropping it to save money and asked if anyone minded; they did mind in large numbers, so it was continued. Right up to going out of business. Skilled typesetters were no longer needed. Change comes. The sun always rises.

I continued writing for a living. Maybe I will continue even if AI “takes over.” As it has in a lot of instances. Other writers and I should be asking “Where’s the opportunity here?” Am I a carriage-maker in a Model-T era? Change comes with opportunities. One just has to figure them out.

Don’t blame change—it’s inexorable.

Here’s a short interesting Seth’s Blog on that subject. Job Churn. (Link) Change always comes, always has. As has opportunity. And another short one titled Brittle Systems on the same subject: Change. (Link)

Casual, cool bubbles, Dino sings.

The visual is static, so click this Link for a restful retro two minutes. My favorite Dino story is when his wife would get fed up with one of the Martin kids’ antics, she’d send him/her (one of eight children) into Dean’s study for punishment. They’d drag their feet, head down (“No, not that, anything but that!”) and enter the sacrosanct study after knocking.

Martin would tell them to sit down while he finished some calls.

The kid would get a Coke out of the office fridge and relax with a magazine. After awhile, dad Martin would look up, say “You can go.” The kid would leave, drag back past mom Martin, wiping fake tears. “Well?” mom would say. Kid would say, “It was awful. I learned my lesson.” (This bubble was burst on nationwide TV)