Neil’s Blog

Published in the San Diego Union-Tribune, June 1, 2020 I will never belong. I just read about a new audio app called Clubhouse. If you are a Silicon Valley big shot or a Hollywood big shot or a music big shot or just a really big shot from any one of a dozen other verticals, […]

Published in the San Diego Union-Tribune, May 25, 2020 About 30 million men and women in the U.S. are currently unemployed. In the next few months, almost all of them are going to try to return to work. Some will go back to jobs that are waiting, and some will go looking for new jobs. […]

Published in the San Diego Union-Tribune, May 18, 2020 Well, like all of you I have been doing my sheltering in place, and leaving aside not getting my nails done, my hair cut, my teeth cleaned, or my accu-punctured. I also have not been able to bat the ball around with my psychoanalyst/shrink. As many […]

Published in the San Diego Union-Tribune, May 11, 2020 In 1972, I was working in Hollywood as a writer when the movie, “The Godfather” cameout. It changed the world in at least one way — by calling attention to a new word:“consigliere.” I have liked that word ever since. It suggests a relationship to the […]

Published in the San Diego Union-Tribune, Monday, May 4, 2020 In 2007, Nassim Nicholas Taleb wrote “The Black Swan,” a book that has become the benchmark for how to consider certain events that have three particular characteristics, namely rarity, extreme impact and retrospective predictability. I like the words “retrospective predictability,” because it clearly suggests that […]

Published in the San Diego Union-Tribune, April 27, 2020 Like it or lump it. The derivation of this phrase appears to be dated in the 16th century and is sometimes credited to Thomas Hobson, famous for Hobson’s choice, loosely translated as “take what is here at the moment or walk away with nothing.” And so […]