Luck of the Draw

Patience is not my strongest point and blog or web sites and the like allow for one to come out, guns blazing, without always thinking things through. When dealing with economics and advice this is a fatal flaw and the mind must shut impatience out and sometimes wait. At the same time one can do the otherwise unacceptable like review a book not seen.

In my salad days I shared a house with an almost impecunious rock critic and, at one stage we were both without a record player. My mate, who I will refrain from naming, took to writing superb reviews for a major daily without actually listening to the music. I can see him now in the house in North Fitzroy, Melbourne, cheerfully staring at the pile of new releases that landed regularly and, as he stared at a Jethro Tull cover muttering something like “they are due for a good one” and writing accordingly. Most of his reviews were harsh but usually, I discovered, when someone gave us a player, pretty fair and accurate. Like a mate in the High Desert of California, actually he’s not in the higher part of the desert but in jail, but only for 18 months, who had the disconcerting habit of playing cards without looking at any or one particular card. “I know it’s a good one,” he’d say and more often than not he won. He lost when he discharged a fire arm in a public place, a bar in Idaho, went on the run, was inevitably captured and is doing it fine. The music critic blew it when he reviewed a rock concert which he failed to attend and therefore failed to learn the concert had been cancelled. Needless to say he was reprimanded.