STOP: Yer' Album

I spent years, mostly in college, looking for music outside of classic rock. Why on earth would I do something like that? Well, I was so pro-classic that when I started djing at my college rock station, I wanted to do an 'artist feature' program, focusing on classic rock greats. I went over the idea with a friendly record store clerk (now owner) and he asked me why, if there are already four or five stations within the FM spectrum playing classic rock, we would need another one?

Good point! Such a good point that I dropped the idea and, when two people did put together a show that was more-or-less that, I scoffed.

But, after years of exploration, I fully understand that there is NOTHING like classic rock. Nothing hits home quite as solid as a good blues-boogie-rock album. The feelings associated with it cover everything from fishing, drinking, and wearing Carhartts to first crushes, tailspin depression, and personal revelation.

I finally got my hands on this not-so-rare yet not-so-available James Gang album, their first. I'm so into it, I was singing the last song, "Stop," on the way to work. Sorry fellow pedestrians! I'm feeling it. It's got that mid-tempo jive feeling that has about as broad an appeal as I could imagine. 1969 was the year, a landmark year for rock never to be repeated. If you're in need of some blues-rock (oh, by the way, it's seriously funky), then I recommend this.

Click here for a little russian blog that has a whole thing on Joe Walsh, the principal member of James Gang.

And, if you're drawing a blank on the James Gang, they had a song called "Funk #49" that you've probably heard. It was an instrumental that typifies "hard rock." It was the song that the 'cool kids' were listening to in the Simpsons when Homer wanted to hang out with them (flashback scene, Hullabalooza episode).

CNN Wellsmus Heroes Part 1

Kablaow! David Swensen gives you, with all the compassion he genuinely has, his flashlight through the financial darkness.

Who is he? He's actively managed the Yale Endowment to a staggering 28 billion dollars. And if you have questions about how they use that money, please read this article in Dec/Jan 09 Worth first. But I can't find it online, for your persual, which is a darn shame! I may have to buy this magazine and leave it on the house coffee table for all to read.

Hero: Someone who works diligently for an overall worthwhile cause, does an exceptional job, and tries to help others achieve the same. David Swensen, you are a MaureenDowdIsWorthless hero and someone that Wellsmus wishes he could work for.

So, let me do some quoting:

David Swensen on why Yale doesn't make it totally free tuition for all:

"If you dig beneath the surface and look at the extraordinary financial aid that's available, something like only the top five percent of money earners in the country wouldn't qualify for financial assistance. And I don't think it makes any sense to subsidize the wealthy."

David Swensen on why they don't spend more of the endowment:

"Even with four or five modifications to the spending rule [spending more money, in other words], we ended up with contemporary spending rates lower than we wanted. (Laughs) I don't think we're going to have that problem anymore."

David Swensen on results:

"When I started, the endowment's contribution to the operating budget was $45 million. Today we're contributing $1.15 billion. So the spending from the endowment this year is more than the endowment was when I started."

On Jim Cramer:

"Jim Cramer is a Charlatan. He turns the serious issue of personal financial security into a complete joke. There is nothing that comes out of James Cramer's mouth that allows people to make intelligent investment decisions."

On Richard Fuld, of Lehman:

"The debate when he testified in front of Congress was whether he made $450 million in the past seven or eight years or whether he made $350 million. I'm sure Dick Fuld is devastated by the demise of Lehman Brothers, but he still made staggering amounts of money."

On John Mack, of Morgan Stanley:

"It was just extraordinary that somebody like John Mack, who's in charge of Morgan Stanley, a firm that made staggering amounts of money from facilitating short-selling on the part of its clients, would have the gumption to get up and blame the short-seller for the troubles that Morgan Stanley found itself in."

David's books:

Pioneering Portfolio Management - this is for the institutional investor

Unconventional Success - this is for the individual investor.

Note: I believe that most of us will face these decisions at some point, and I recommend at least flipping through Unconventional Success. He is NOT POP FINANCE, so it is fairly dense reading.

NY Mag to Maureen Dowd: Stop being superficial!

Wow, really? NY Mag...with the Look Book, and the fashionable parties.

It's a good magazine to actually enjoy the best of best superficial things! And to crack up at the Look Book, which Gawker did since forever ago so I can't go there. But please, go there.

But for a categorizing of the sheer quantity of times that Maureen Dowd engages Tina Fey on food-related things, click here. (This is like a typical NY Mag nonfeature - 1 minute article).

Recommendation for promotion: Maureen Dowd

Marueen Dowd's column is great, form fitting, and illuminating. She clearly excells in writing for America's number one insider magazine: Vanity Fair. Please consider this a public appeal from one concerned hoi polloi to have her contribute monthly to this magazine and not to the newspaper I try hard to admire.

Her article is long and wafty, which is perfect for Vanity Fair. Their articles snake through 150 pages of glossy, engaging the reader to flip through countless ads.

If you do not have time to read it (an hour, at my limited reading level), here are many of the Vanity Fair forms that Maureen Dowd successfully (naturally) shows:

- Fashion, fashion! Expensive, of course, and both known and lesser-known designers.

-Old movie stuff that artsy people love: Marlene Dietrich, Fellini

-the looks, the looks! Tons of stuff to make Tina Fey's verbal look book (hint, she's not a fashionista, and boy do we learn that)

-sexy details about the past

-vulgar quotes

-adoration! adoration!

-how tall Tina Fey's husband is to the 1/2 inch

-using a phrase like glamour-puss

-Tina Fey's weight issues

-Tina Fey's ethnic heritage

-known lit references: Daisy Buchanan Great Gatsby

This is Vanity Fair. This is people in-the-know that you-don't(won't)-know talking way off the cuff about those we, "the collective consciousness," know. First, it's vibrant reading. Bore yourself to death with Time, Newsweek, and the Economist, the people quoted in these articles are too important to care about damaging quote regurgitation. Second, it's Vanity Fair, which has it's own in-crowd of people who gobble this stuff up. They give their people what they want, hat's off to them. Other publications are not so successful.

Maureen Dowd is an insider: who she knows, what they wear, what they'd like to wear, and where they wear it. This magazine needs to accept her into the fold. I mean, she may not bleed blue blood, but can't Vanity Fair make an exception?


Please?


Please?


What about me, can I get a table? I'll buy a mixed drink with my dinner, I promise!

Christmaswatch 2008: The big ticket

Certain gifts are ageless, and if they are also articles of clothing, they are the best gifts to get your mother.

Question: Will Bergdorf cut the price on a Hermes Scarf?



AAK! I hope so!

Bring back the ha'penny

Maureen Dowd would like to touch on Tom Friedman's territory this week, in between the Lexus and the Olive Tree. Her article this week is ostensibly about outsourcing but also about the difficulty of keeping the Newspaper business afloat.

Indeed, she has some amusing anecdotes about India-written news that and some associated outsourcing problems. But, a busybody stateside editor could probably fix those errors. News is global in ways that are hard to tell--many of the 2008 Olympic Games (not the big events) were commented on from the U.S. off of the satellite feed.

When given a choice, and the newspapers certainly gave that choice, the internet generation would prefer to pick up their news for free online. And no, they don't usually click on the ads. Sorry internet ad dreams!

But she does neglect to mention that some intrepid (people have other words) businessmen like Rupert Murdoch are willing to purchase unprofitable newspapers. Oh, the glory of Op-Eds, you miss chunks of the pie that are "clearly" not relevant.

One part of her opinion that I can't figure out is whether she thinks the outsourcing newsman, James McPherson, is the future, or if he's an enterprising moron trying to cut too many corners. Perhaps she thinks he's both!

When Maureen Dowd puts her columns on the auction block, I'm reminded of how much I like pennies, and that, to paraphrase Mr. Burns, "I think I'd be happier keeping the penny."