Me and Elvis

When I was over at the Cobble Beach Concours last weekend, I tried to take a picture with my phone, a picture with the Farm Manager posed alongside a very pretty 1934 Bentley.

Although I thought I took a couple of dozen pictures, only one turned out, and it featured the torso of the FM alongside that pretty car. Back in the day of real cameras and real film, you wouldn't have claimed that "turned out."

But with the new technology, everything is good all the time, right?

I bring this up only because I miss that old school 35 mm stuff.

The first time I was in rehab they pounded into me the importance of having something to do when they graduated me. You had to have a hobby or an interest or a passion or something, otherwise you'd just fall back into your old ways...

So I took up photography.

It almost became a passion.

There are people who have Neumann photographs on their walls to this day, and not all of them are relatives.

 My photography career peaked when the Bookshelf Cafe offered me their walls for a couple of months. That was the good news.

The bad news was I'd have to share those walls with another photographer.

I was mortified. Share those Bookshelf walls?

No way!

Long story short, it wasn't long before I was taking another crack at rehab.

That's when I found out I wasn't the first repeat customer. According to the old hands at the place, Elvis used to go there all the time!

Lease this Bentley for only $3,250/month

I was listening to an interview with the economist-du-jour Thomas Piketty the other day wherein he remarked in passing that the marginal tax rate in America for a good chunk of the mid-20th century averaged over 80%.

His point was that a relatively high marginal tax rate obviously didn't kill capitalism.

There is a move afoot to discredit Piketty, based on his alleged tendency to cherry-pick the stats that support his thesis. Why that's news puzzles me; isn't that what academics do?

In any event, that doesn't impact his observation that capitalism can thrive with substantially higher tax rates than the rich enjoy in the modern era.

But it might cost a few Bentley sales. As you know, Bentley is the pinnacle of the Volkswagen brand. I have a hunch that the Volkswagen brand will survive a handful of lost Bentley sales.

As for that Bentley you can lease for $3,250 a month, that special offer comes from Bentley Toronto and is featured on the front page of the "M" section of today's Globe and Mail.

No doubt that's a nice piece; all the performance of a Mustang GT without the stigma of low price.