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The Friday Fives

1. Which industry is more corrupt than anyone’s ready to admit?

We know it is kind of corrupt (Trump, anyone?) but commercial real estate is hardly regulated and any existing regulations are rarely fully enforced.

2. What is an industry/profession that has a stellar deserved reputation?

Nursing. I don’t think this is at all controversial – nurses are angels.

3. How many languages do you speak? And what is your level in each?

Three:

English, incredibly fluent.
French, about as fluent as a fourth grader.
Latin, a total novice

Thanks to Duo-lingo.

4. What’s something from your childhood that kids today will never experience?

A television/media device with no remote control – and you to get up off you ass an go over to the television to change the channel.

5. What’s preventing you from fighting crime(in spandex) today?

It was really windy out today – that kept me inside. Today the criminals won because of my pollen allergies.

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The Friday Fives

1. What’s the scariest thing about living in 2025?

There is a God-Damned maniac in the White House with his finger on the trigger of nuclear weapons and he is now musing about reinstituting testing nukes in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. What could go wrong?

2. If you could teleport anywhere right now, where would you go?

Well, the question doesn’t ask for just one jump – so I would pick the ability to always live at 72° outside, all the time.

3. Every animal on Earth suddenly gains human-level intelligence but keeps its personality. What’s the first species to start a war?

The Great Apes. I mean you’ve seen the movies, correct? They are pissed and we are doomed.

4. What’s something that’s about to happen which most people aren’t aware of?

There is this huge financial bubble about ready to burst from crypto funding huge AI start ups that have no real business profit applications and as the economics starts to float into focus the rest of the economy, based on very shaky Trump-ism econ, we are doomed.

5. What was your favorite show growing up that no one remembers now?

A Saturday morning non-animated show about post-apocalyptic Earth called Ark 2. (Runner up “Kings” ran a partial one season on NBC about a fictional future when the USA deteriorated into Kingdoms and the soap opera fights for power.)

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The Friday Fives

1. If you won a large lottery and the rules stated that you had to give 10% to a recognized charity, who would you pick?

The World Wildlife Fund – save the elephants !

2. If you heard the news that “a well-known celebrity has been outed as a serial killer”, who would you immediately think it was?

Crispin Glover

3. What’s the scariest sound you’ve heard that’s woken you up in the middle of the night?

One Halloween season my sister had this really spookie ASMR ringtone on her phone of a woman asking me if I was there and what is going on and if I was scared. It went off one night, around 1:00 am and scared the Bejezuus out of me.

4. What do you remember from kindergarten?

The smell of wet brown craft paper and white glue.

5. What closed restaurant do you miss the most?

Prima in the Hotel Teatro. Really only went there for brunch but it was divine. Bottomless Prosecco and a sublime stuffed ravioli with soft boiled eggs (how did he do that!?)with a brown butter sauce and truffles. An exquisite Caesar salad. I do so miss that place.

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Homer and Lisa Simpson

NYTimes 10/2/2025 on the occasion of the the publication of Pynchon’s new book: “Shadow Ticket?

LISA: Dad, did you read “Gravity’s Rainbow” yet, the Thomas Pynchon masterpiece? He’s what I want to be when I grow up — a famous literary recluse. Just imagine being speculated about by the most consequential people in the world: English literature grad students.

HOMER: Sweetie, I really wanted to read it. But you know I don’t like to read. My eyes get so tired going right, right, right, then, ugh … left. Plus from the title I thought “Gravity’s Rainbow” would be about Skittles. It didn’t seem to be, so I took a break about halfway through.

LISA: You made it halfway through the book?

HOMER: Halfway through the first line.

LISA: OK, I thought you might struggle with it, so I got you a pop-up version too.

HOMER: Sorry, pop-up books are way too hard. If something’s going to pop up at me it better be from a toaster. Plus you have to figure out how to get the pages to lie back down flat again. I’m no engineer.

LISA: I thought you were a nuclear engineer.

HOMER: That’s more about pushing buttons. Or not pushing buttons. I can’t remember which. So if you had to choose a passage from the book to appear in The New York Times, what would it be?

LISA: It would have to be this quote about power in America: “All the animals, the plants, the minerals, even other kinds of men, are being broken and reassembled every day, to preserve an elite few …”

HOMER: Interesting. Did you know there’s a green Skittle? Do you think this Pynchon guy knows what it tastes like?

LISA: Another great conversation, Dad.

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Friday Fives

1. If someone called you and said “Turn on the TV, it doesn’t matter what channel.” What would you expect has happened?

He has died – he is finally dead. No names are necessary.

2. You get to domesticate an animal the same way we turned wolves into dogs. What animal do you pick and how does it turn out?

I recently watched a documentary on bonobos and I would really enjoy have a domesticated trained bonobo as a pet to carry around with me.

3. Who is widely regarded as a hero, but was actually a terrible person?

John Wayne

4. For those who didn’t grow up privileged, what’s something you thought was a luxury when you were a kid?

Electric windows in a car. Growing up it was all manual window cranks, all the time.

5. What did you lose between 2020 – 2025?

About 50 pounds. Thank you science and GLP-1s.