How Lucky Is Joe Rogan?

So lucky.

The Greatest Of All Depressions

From the WSJ:

"A nose job in a hospital with a private nurse in attendance had been something of a rite of passage for Joan Asher's children. But when her fourth and last child was ready for her own rhinoplasty recently, Ms. Asher asked her to postpone it.

The financial markets were simply more out of whack than her 16-year-old's proboscis."

DAY TO DAY

The turmoil downtown has even worked it's way into the most mundane daily routines of the city's elite. Doris Lockborn, the wife of a prominent investment banker, has burned the sheets she slept on every morning for the last 35 years. "I did it once on our honeymoon, and it just felt right. I haven't missed a day yet. Even when we go on holiday, I make sure they set us up with a fire proof rubish bin." And being accommodated to the lifestyle that she is, Mrs. Lockborn has been setting aflame only the best silk sheets that money could buy. "They're made by a flock of Turkish silk worms - they only allow the worms to make enough silk for one set of sheets and then they crush them with a rock, so it's truly one of a kind. It's fabulous." But after a review of their finances in the wake of the new financial future, Mr. Lockborn put a kibosh on his wife's ritual. "He made me go from the 1000 thread count to the 800, can you believe it? It doesn't have nearly the same crackle when you light it up. It's embarrassing. I see the way the help has been looking at me. With those... eyes."

VACATIONS

The economy is even starting to decide how the well-to-doers and their families spend that one special part of the year - time travel vacations. "We were planning on taking the kids back to Florence during the Renaissance," said Rachel Allen, a stay-at-home mom on the Upper-East Side. "Maybe show them a little culture, get them acquainted with the classics, as they were happening." But between the tumultuous economy and the ongoing strife in the middle east, the price for the plutonium that would be necessary for the trip is beyond the Allen's budget. "He starts blabbering at me about 'jiggawats' and all this nonsense and finally gets around to telling me the farthest we could get back would be 1955. And it's like, if I wanted them to see that, I could just take them to see 'Grease' on Broadway. But I don't, because I don't hate my children."

CHILD LABOR

The financial crisis is rising to the point where it's even starting to effect the literal backbone of the local upper crust: the coal mine. It's a widely known fact that one of Wall Street's most ambitious project over the last two booming decades has been it's quest to find the remaining two Adi Shankara stones that it needed to officially rule the world. Even as the project has produced nothing but the bodies of thousands of kidnapped children over the years, the traders still weren't sweating it. As Michael Shenkman, a commodities trader at Morgan Stanely put it, "It was still like, 'Hey, free coal.'" 

But now some are wondering if the quest for undisputed world dominance through the use of mystical stones is worth it in the floundering financial market. "It used to be when your indentured children slaves were starting to die off, you could just send an expedition out to some other po dunk village, round up some more, and we'd be back to full force by Monday," said Jack Newman, an investor with Goldman Sachs. "But now, with funding the whole thing on the weakened dollar, and the price of gas. Do you have any idea how much it costs to fill a jet with enough fuel to get it into a remote Indian village? Yeesh, it was like, who's pillaging who here?"

The project hasn't completely come to a stop yet though, as the investors have turned to a new form of labor: molemen.  Though it's clear no one involved is satisfied with the solution. "The kids at least, if they weren't finding something, there was a certain joy in watching them work, knowing how much they were suffering, you know?" said Newman, watching the new slaves from the mine's viewing gallery. "These guys, they seem to like it. They smile all the time. Or at least I think they do. It's hard to tell. It's creepy, I know that."

Why China Will Win This Century

In the billion plus people that currently populate the nation of China, not one of them is Spencer Pratt. 

  

Not In China

Well played China. Well played. 

X was never like this.

I've always enjoyed the way that Netflix is able to actually recommend movies that I enjoy, but now I dread going to my home page because there isn't anything in the world that screams "You're a film student" more than a website that wants to tell you about Indie Dramas from the 70s. Which led to this little quadruple feature:

I'm not sure how my interest in an Oscar winning musical biopic, a New Wave neo-noir, and a Michael Haneke thriller made a computer think I'd like to spend an afternoon watching three softcore porns and story about Jewish orphans during World War II, but throw in a wheel of brie and that pretty much sums up my description of a perfect afternoon.

I also like how Netflix now gives me the option to rate an entire country on a star based scale. Belgium? Two Stars - DID NOT LIKE.

Does the Clark really need someone in a crowd to hold up a sign for it?

My mother claimed to have been holding a sign with my name on it while they were filming this, then when I said I couldn't see it, she said that she was probably too close to the crane to actually be in the shot, which is exactly the kind of thing my mom would say when she wants me to know that she loves me but doesn't actually want to embarrass herself in public/on national television. Thanks Mom. 

Personal notes:

• They just shut down route 7?
• The aerial shots that make it appear that Stockbridge just springs forth from a magical forest. Which, I guess, technically is true. 
• The post song interview Diane Sawyer has with James Taylor about his roots in the community goes so far as to have him point at Austen Riggs, which is only about fifty feet away, and yet no one mentions heroin. Nicely done Diane. 
• The fact that at the end of this song, the entire town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts didn't spontaneously burst into one giant apple pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side astounds me. 
  

Seriously, I'm pretty sure this is what the official seal of the Berkshires now looks like: 

That's James Taylor and Yo-Yo Ma enjoying a sundae on Moby Dick's back as they glide down a glowing Housatonic River on a lovely Sunday afternoon (W.E.B. Dubois was excluded because he was a communist and nobody enjoys that). Just imagine that it was beautifully painted by Norman Rockwell and not drawn by someone with the artistic skills of a third grader and then captured onto a terrible iPhone camera.

TRISTA+RYAN4EVAH

From the BBC:

A Nigerian man with 86 wives, Mohammadu Bello Abubakar, has been arrested by an Islamic court for refusing to divorce all but four of them.

"So I only have four roses, and as you can plainly see, there are 86 of you. And again, I'd like to apologize for the seating arrangements, they promised they'd have more chairs. Also, I would like to apologize for the excessive bigotry. Anyway, let's get this thing started. The first rose is for... wife #67."

"Me?"

"Oh, no. You're wife #67?"

"Yes."

"Oh, no, I meant you, to the right. The one with the glasses, what's your number?"

"52."

"Huh, I could have sworn you were 67. You know this would have been easier if you had all worn the numbered hats I handed out earlier." 

"The hats were ugly and crudely made from old newspaper."

"Look 52, do you want to be one of my four wives or not?"

"My name is Karen."

"I think it's clear we're beyond the name phase of our relationship." 

A Strong "I" Statement

I feel like I should start this out with a thesis statement, something that lays a strong foundation in the present, with an eye out towards the future. 

This... this feels right.