Home, home on the web…
Beautiful Flickr group showcasing the work of over 350 photographers who enjoy “capturing the colorful, artistic beauty of the Southwest, influenced particularly by the Arizona, New Mexico, and Southern California regions, as well as Mexico”.
Dive into the Group pool of photos and don’t forget Louis on TV tonight!
I love Louise Theroux. For me he’s the embodiment of the modern British gentleman, a combination of incisive wry wit and a laid back attitude to the cultural oddities of 21st century living. It’s his ability to put interviewees at ease that has led to some sensational TV over the years.
He writes on the BBC website about his new programme, Louis Theroux: Law and Disorder in Philadelphia and confesses at the start “I’m not the most macho guy in the world. I am not what you would call a ‘man’s man.”
With this in mind, Louis has boldy stepped into the role of shadowing modern day lawmen who patrol the mean streets of Philadelphia.
The sixth largest city in the US was no wild west outpost even way back in the 19th century. Whilst intrepid pioneers made the long trek west by covered wagon to seek riches in the gold fields of California, Philadelpia - once the second largest city in the British Empire after London - had been the social and geographical center of the original 13 American colonies and can claim such American treasures as Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, and the house where Betsy Ross stitched the original stars and stripes.
It turns out though that The City of Brotherly Love nowadays has one of the worst homicide rates in America and so Louis risks life and limb to document gang warfare and the perils of the drug trade:
My only issue with the finished film is the huge flak jacket I’m wearing throughout. It does make me look a bit of a wally, especially when I’m interviewing a man holding a small child (neither of them wearing flak jackets). But there you are - I’m not a man’s man and now the world will know.
The programme will be shown on BBC Two on Sunday, 30 November, at 9pm
He acts, produces and directs.
He won 7 Oscars, including Best Director, for the modern western drama Dances with Wolves (somewhat of an apology for all those John Ford westerns that went before).
And now it turns out Kevin Costner likes to play country music AND has had a hit record in Japan!
With band Modern West Costner performed recently on the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville and has managed to get three songs from the album Untold Truths into the soundtrack for his latest film, Swing Vote.
Not bad going for the man who also brought us Waterworld and The Postman. And it seems there may now even be a sequel to 1991’s “well-crafted PC touchy-feely hippie crap“.
The post on the Libertas film blog is over a year old so ‘The Holy Road’ may not be coming soon but some of the comments are well worth reading.
The richest man in the world must love buying footwear, particularly boots fit for a rodeo star.
How do I know this? Well the Oracle of Omaha happens to own (through his investment company Berkshire Hathaway) Justin Boots, purveyor of quality cowboy boots since 1879.
Now, at the start of this year, Mr Buffett had an estimated net worth of $62 billion - as ranked by Forbes magazine - so he won’t personally feel too bad about the theft of 20,000 pairs of Justin boots from a Fort Worth warehouse. But then again a $3 million dollar theft in the current economy is going to upset any CEO.
I first heard about Buffett’s investing skills after reading Peter Lynch’s classic book Beating the Street. His theory was ‘buy what you know and love’ and (not wishing to simplify a whole library of Buffet books) I think Buffet aims to keep things just as simple - buy what you understand.
The classic ‘Sage’ quote I remember is about investing in Gilette, maker of shaving paraphenalia:
You go to bed feeling very comfortable just thinking about two and a half billion males with hair growing while you sleep. No one at Gillette has trouble sleeping.
Are there that many people out there willing to buy cowboy boots? A month ago I wrote about a shopping trip down the Kings Road in London, R Soles boots and the fact every shop had cowboy boots for sale.
Today this is the most popular post on this blog and if there are people out there willing to risk jail to steal 20,000 pairs of boots then maybe we should all follow Warren’s example and start buying shares in bootmakers!
I was hunting for a cowboy themed T shirt last night and found this good looking one on Spreadshirt by Austrian designer ‘Amorphia’.
The description: “The ghost of a very stubborn cowboy standing over his freshly minted corpse, holding a last stand against the buzzards”
Has anyone bought from this T shirt printing company? The quality of the designs looks to be great.
Clint Eastwood, one of the most famous cowboys of the 20th century, introduced Kendall Nelson’s book Gathering Remnants - A Tribute to the Working Cowboy with the words:
“Working cowboys are the embodiment of the true American spirit. They live a rugged, clean life: a difficult yet simple life”
Perhaps the series of scandals that have shaken the foundations of modern America (think Enron, WorldCom and the global fallout of the sub-prime mortgage market) mean it’s time for corporate America to embrace a new clean-living approach to life?
Bill Hartman, writing in the Texas newspaper the Taylor Daily Press, certainly thinks so:
Politics, Wall Street, Congress, big insurance, big finance, globalization ad nauseam. Lies, cheating, stealing, gouging, greed, cowardice and regulations. I am so tired of these and other disgusting words usurping news columns and air waves… The unlikeliest sounding guy has the finest and most sincere answers to our nation’s woeful ills.
So who is this guy? Hartman thinks author James P. Owen, a 35 year veteran of Wall Street, has the answers in his book Cowboy Ethics, which has at its heart a ‘Cowboy Code’ that should keep any individual on the straight and narrow.
So just what forms the Code of the West?
Can you live by the code and enjoy a clean and simple life?
