He went to Paris
Looking for answers
To questions that bothered him so
He was impressive,
Young and aggressive,
Saving the world on his own
Warm summer breezes
And french wines and cheeses
Put his ambitions at bay
Summers and winters
Scattered like splinters
And four or five years slipped away
He went to England
Played the piano
And married an actress named Kim
They had a fine life
She was a good wife
And bore him a young son named Jim
And all of the answers
To all of the questions
Locked in his attic one day
He liked the quiet
Clean country living
And twenty more years slipped away
Well, the war took his baby
Bombs killed his lady
And left him with only one eye
His body was battered
His whole world was shattered
And all he could do was just cry
While the tears were a' fallin'
He was recallin'
The answers he never found
So he hopped on a freighter
Skidded the ocean
And left England without a sound
Now he lives in the islands
Fishes the pylons
And drinks his green label each day
He's writing his memoirs
And losing his hearing
But he don't care what most people say
"Through eighty six years
Of perpetual motion, "
If he likes you, he'll smile and he'll say,
"Some of it's magic,
And some of it's tragic,
But I had a good life all the way"
He went to Paris
Looking for answers
To questions that bothered him so
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: J. Buffett
He Went to Paris lyrics © American Broadcasting Music, Inc.
C.: d.c. sent me a text. He has invented a new “sniglet.” This should be a word. “Mental Pause” is the age humans reach when their brains are paused more than engaged. (hehe) d.c. must be bored, too. I’ll call him and pass the time until Ralph’s concert starts (ring) Hi, d.c. I’m just waiting for Ralph’s concert to start. It seems like it’s been three days since I started waiting!
d.: Hi, Cal.E. I thought that you might enjoy the “sniglet” I came up with while I was studying the stock market crash.
C.: What do you think caused it, d.c.?
d.: Mainly panic. People don’t want to take a chance that they won’t get their money back, so they pulled out of the stock market…
C.: Is that why people aren’t wanting to invest in cryptocurrency anymore? I mean, who could have seen that crash coming?!
d.: Me, my son, anyone with any common sense. This type of stock offers no product. Without a product, you’re creating a false economy. There needs to be some product, whether it be a physical good or a service to provide for something like this to succeed.
C.: So, you're saying one should just keep all of his/her cash in a pillow case, and not take any chances?
d.: I don’t believe in taking chances, Cal.E. Risks are a different story, though…
C.: What’s the difference?
d.: Investing in Cryptocurrency would be taking a chance. There is no guarantee that anything good will happen with it. It’s similar to betting on sports. One has no control over these things. No matter how much a gambler studies the injury reports and tendencies of each team, emotions will play a role. Everyone has a favorite or least favorite team, no matter how much s/he tries not to figure that into the equation. Add to that the fact that the bookie will automatically subtract ten percent, and will usually have the point differential so close that it can’t be assumed that one team will exceed it, and it’s not a good risk.
C. : The stock market is down, so what is a good risk to take?
d.: I think it’s best to bet on one’s self, whether through a business venture or by studying trends in the stock market until that person has the trends figured out. That would, at least, take as much time as a part-time job. Another example of betting on one’s self is a professional gambler who plays poker for a living.
Many people think that playing poker is taking a chance. It is, if one doesn’t work hard at it. Honing one’s skill as a poker player can be as time-consuming as working a full or part-time job. Playing poker, though, can teach some life lessons to those who play it, because life is like a poker game. I’ll use a hypothetical example. I don’t condone gambling, but, much like in real life, you must know the rules to succeed in poker.
My example is a five-player game. Player one is unsure of whether or not to stay in the game. He isn’t a concern to me, but he is very important to player two. He’s a card counter. He needs player one to stay in the game to increase his odds of drawing the card he needs to fill his outside straight or give him a full house. He’s playing the cards, not the other players.
In your favorite song, Kenny Rogers states, “You never count your money, when you're sitting at the table.” That is correct, but not for the reason most people think. I don’t believe in luck, either good or bad. The reason you don’t count your money at the table is because it will take the player’s focus away from what s/he is trying to accomplish. Much like in life, finances increase and decrease according to the situation, but focusing on a goal is the main concern. So, I’m not worried about player two. He’s too technical.
Player three is my main concern. He acts like he’s checking his messages on his phone. He’s not. Also, the “vodka tonic” he’s sipping is probably just water. He wants the other players to believe he's drinking alcohol so that his decisions won’t seem unusual. He’ll appear to be reckless until the end of the game, when most of the money is on the table…
C.: If he wasn’t checking his voicemail and email on his phone, what was he doing?
d.: He was checking me out. He knows who his chief competition is. Player four concerns neither of us, because he doesn’t want to be there to begin with. He fidgets, looks at his cards, puts them down, and looks around the room. He’s too distracted to be a good poker player. Basically, this isn’t a five-player game, but a two-player game. It is between player three and me.
C.: So, who wins?
d.: The better poker player. I won’t unequivocally say that’s me, but I made most of my “entertainment money” in college playing poker and hustling pool (and pinball, when the opportunity presented itself).
C.: So, you were good at shooting pool as well as playing poker?
d.: I was above average. I could shoot with either hand, so that helped. My main advantage, though, was my partner. I saw her “run the table” a few times. The other players never even got a shot after she broke. After a while, no one wanted to play her (or me, because we played partners).
C.: Couldn’t y’all have gone incognito?
d.: Not really. My partner had some….”noticeable assets.” I’ll leave it at that. She was a nice lady and I enjoyed her company.
C.: What happened to her?
d.: My infamous memory. I told her I would call one night, and forgot to. That was the end of that. By that time, we couldn’t “earn” any more money playing pool, so she thought that’s why I didn’t call her. I really just forgot.
C.: Love stinks, huh, d.c?
d.: I think J. Geils did put it best, Cal.E.