Margaret Brennan No Longer InBusiness

I was caught by surprise last Friday when I read Margaret Brennan's farewell to the NYSE and her show on twitter. I had been a loyal follower of InBusiness since she left CNBC's retail beat to join BloombergTV in 2009.

It seemed as though the show was doing well. She moved from the studio to the floor of the Exchange and her image appeared on posters in Metro North rail cars and banners strewn across city buses.

According to TVNewser, Andrew Morse, head of U.S. TV for Bloomberg, said the changes are a continuation of Bloomberg’s “evolution into a digital, multi-platform news organization.”

I suppose it only fair that in this age of disintermediation that a change to a daily TV program be reported on twitter. No indication as to where Brennan will land, but I can't imagine a bright journalist like her will be sidelined for long.

And so it would appear that the glittering money-honey path away from CNBC may not be golden after all, e.g., does anybody tune into Erin Burnett's program on CNN?

Top Five Hottest Instagram Models Redux

Number 5 - @audprater

Number 4 - @irelandbasingerbaldwin

Number 3 - @katieluddy

Number 2 - @ashxschultz Ashley Schultz
Number 1 - @lauren.spurlin

The Enduring Beauty of Liz Cho

Have you ever stared at a portrait of a lady for an eternity? What if eternity was measured in 10 minutes or 10 hours or 10 days? What if you saw the same picture each day for 10 years? Would it feel like eternity? Could any portrait hold you captive for that long? Perhaps if it changed ever so slightly each day, a new hairstyle, a different dress, a dash of pepper here, a pinch of salt there, would it continue to entice the palette? Imagine if the lady could speak and you could watch her expression change from mock disbelief to spontaneous laughter in an instant? Would eternity be long enough?

I first wrote about Liz Cho in December of 2006 when she was the co-anchor of Eyewitness News at 11pm. Her bright portrait illuminated my tranquil living room each night. Those times when she was absent, there was a noticeable void like a blank space on a museum wall. I took note of one such absence in 2007 when she was on maternity leave and triumphantly announced her return a few months later.…

Billy Joel Plays 33rd Show at Madison Square Garden

You can tell Billy Joel enjoys what he does for a living. From the moment he walks on stage, the room shrinks and the audience feels like they're sitting in his living room. These days, that living room happens to be Madison Square Garden.

He called his 33rd show at MSG, the "Halloween" show, and peppered his fans with the themes from Halloween, Friday the 13th, The Addams Family and Jaws along with a raucous snippet of "The Monster Mash" amidst "The River of Dreams."

While "You May Be Right" on any "Long Night" with the "Piano Man," I was thrilled when "The Downeaster Alexa" won the "toss up" over "Say Goodbye to Hollywood." Ya-ya-ya-oh! Strong Island in the house!

I brought my "Uptown Girl" to the show for our ninth wedding anniversary as she's wanted to see Billy Joel for "The Longest Time" and, well, "She's Always a Woman" to me.

We embraced our "…

Little Black Dress

The curve of your back
the twist of your hair
that intent blue-eyed stare
the little black dress
and leather sandals
your flat silhouette
and my love handles
I'm so obsessed with
your little black dress
and the way it hugs your hips
and the gloss you put on your lips
then back in your bag
beside a trendy fashion mag
I'm so obsessed with
your little black dress
I can anticipate the sound
when it shimmies from you
and hits the ground.

Brooklyn Pizza Odyssey

Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story of that man skilled in all ways of devouring pizza. Toppings or none, any pie spread before him, soon to be done.

The journey begins across the Brooklyn Bridge with the steely eye of John Augustus Roebling cast upon ye merry band of travelers as ancient souls swim among the caissons still searching for the allusive bedrock never found.

Under the bridge downtown lies Grimaldi's whose line stretches out like the famous suspension bridge and whose savory mozzarella and thin crust beckons like the sirens' song along the block where the beautiful Cameron Diaz once traipsed with the solemnity of Penelope herself. You sit and order a pie hot out of the coal brick oven and you're filled with a sense of promise and good cheer.

From there, the wind blows out to Midwood and Di Fara, where another crowd gathers as the old man painstakingly puts together his pies grabbing basil from a pot on the windowsill and drenching his masterpiece in…

Write What You Know

"All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know." - Ernest Hemingway

Nature kills, human nature, too, I wish that wasn't true.

"This above all - to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man." - Shakespeare, Hamlet

There was a man who cut in front of me at a crowded rooftop bar overlooking the Chrysler Building which popped against the deep blue Manhattan sky on a pleasant summer night. I brought it to his attention and he shrugged his shoulders. I recalled the wisdom of Queen Elizabeth, who when asked what lesson was the most important to learn in life replied, good manners.

"I don't know much, but I know I love you." - Written by Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil and Tom Snow. Performed by Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville.

I was sitting beneath a tree having lunch on the campus of a large corporation when I called home. My mother and father, sister, nephew,…

Megan Fox, Shaken, Not Stirred

As I passed a beautiful woman on 7th Avenue today, I couldn't help notice that she smelled like the beach, a wonderful mix of suntan lotion, sea air and baked sand that makes your lungs stretch and blood pulse. But we were at Park Slope, not Paradise Island. Maybe my senses have been programmed by years of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issues with recurring captions such as "Beauty and the Beach" to associate the two. By the way, has anyone ever read anything other than the captions in those issues?

That scent, fresh and invigorating seems to fly in the face of our modern perception of beauty, or does it? No one is hotter than Megan Fox right now who presents a juxtaposition of angelic beauty with an edge defined by her prominent tattoos. Transfixed, we follow whatever she does. She insults Michael Bay and gets dropped from the Transformers sequel only to appear in Eminem and Rihanna's Love The Way You Lie video, which had a much bigger audience.

Then a commercial from …

Bluff

Paint my face
and smile like a joker
now that I learned to
lay off poker
There was nothing funny
in losing all my money
What goes up
must comes down
Bet my smile
will become a frown
because like a one-eyed jack
I'll be back sitting at the table
until I'm no longer able
to walk away
Running up debts
I cannot pay.

Cosmic Coffee Shop

Beneath the muted glow of the expensive Time Warner Center, I headed south on Columbus Circle to a solitary figure standing on the corner where the Cosmic Coffee Shop went dark. My friend Melissa, who I had asked to meet me there, was waiting outside, not sure if she had the right place.

Apparently the proprietors of the coffee shop have relocated to 8th Ave., fleeing the exorbitant rent that could not be sustained by two eggs scrambled, hash browns, bacon, rye toast and a piping hot cup of industrial strength java.

Back when I worked nearby, I would often go to the Cosmic Coffee Shop for lunch. Once I sat at the counter beside Philip Seymour Hoffman and a gentleman, who was wearing a neatly pressed blue suit. I ordered my usual fare and paid them no mind until Hoffman excused himself, presumably to use the restroom.

The check was delivered in his absence. Hoffman's acquaintance seemed a bit befuddled before paying it and leaving a tip. Just then, Hoffman returned and thanked him …

Nude

Acid flashback to Buffalo, I'm partying with hipsters, noticing nude photos strung out on the way to the bathroom down the hall. Meredith the photographer catches me staring at one, a side-view of a model holding a bicycle tire like an aureole around her naked torso, conjuring the image of a hula-hoop. I tell her about my fascination with tires and she presents it to me as a gift.

Eight years later in Brooklyn, I find the image in a forgotten stack and put it on the wall. I ask my girlfriend if she wants to see it, but she's distracted by the TV. Later in bed, I can feel the weight of her frustration. She doesn't like the portrait. I defend its artistic merit, but she doesn't want to hear it.

The next day, I'm in the locker room at the gym and there's a fat old naked man sitting on a bench like a centurion at a Roman bath. There are other white-haired, decrepit things prancing around the locker room without towels. I never see them in the gym lifting weights or…

Weird Long Beard Press

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