“Hello darkness, my old friend…” Everybody knows the iconic Simon & Garfunkel song, but do you know the amazing story behind the first line of The Sounds of Silence? It began 62 years ago, when Arthur “Art” Garfunkel, a Jewish kid from Queens, enrolled in Columbia University. During freshman orientation, Art met a student from…

Dear friend: In yesterday’s email, I gave a few examples of how “working for free” is a good thing; and today I want to talk about why it’s not such a good thing. As always, this is one man’s opinion, so ingest these words with a hefty grain of salt. As with just about everything in…

For as long as I can remember, I’ve heard people railing against the idea of “working for free.” My experience with this has mostly been with musicians who get indignant about the idea of a coffee shop wanting halfway decent musicians to play at their joint so they can “get some exposure.” “Down with them,”…

I came across this story on social media this morning about the great Jackie Robinson, the man who broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball in 1947, that reminds me a lot about how we entrepreneurs are – or need to be. It was written by one of Jackie’s teammates, Rex Barney, and I…

A couple weeks ago I wrote about a documentary we watched about the Flat Earth movement, and how the common belief in a single idea, as wrong as it may be, united all sorts of people from all walks of life. It shows the power of community and how we all crave fellowship with others…

When I began the This Is What We C.R.A.V.E. podcast in January 2023, people would often ask me, “What’s your podcast about?” It’s a completely honest question, although the answer I’ve developed in the intervening time would probably be overkill in a short conversation setting. In the past, it was pretty straightforward. I had shows “about music.”…

Years ago, MSNBC had a show called Hardball hosted by Chris Matthews. Matthews had this reputation for being this red-in-the-face, no-nonsense type of interviewer who struck fear in the most grizzled of political veterans in the DC area.  But if you were to watch the show a few times, it was obvious Matthews was more…

Every now and then, we hear news about a lake or water reservoir somewhere being “dangerously close” to drying up. So many millions of people who rely on this body of water are in danger of having their water supply cut off, and the whole region is suddenly in crisis mode. What we don’t hear…

We all have trials in our lives. One time I was personally involved in a real life court trial. Someone did something they shouldn’t have done, charges were brought against them, and I was asked to give my account of what happened. The person against whom charges were brought had a lawyer who knew how…

My Much-Maligned Mercedes aka “Triple M” was finally put to rest last week. My longtime vehicle finally hit the point where the cost of repairs needed didn’t justify keeping it. My plan was always to drive the car until it could no longer be driven – and though it endured some “reputational damage” in its…