Pole Position

I find the Review section of the Wall Street Journal to be must-reading. But I’m inevitably backed up because, well, who has the time? (The feeling is apparently not exclusive, considering the latest tagline for the paper is “People who don’t have time make time to read the Wall Street Journal.” The commercials, featuring various entrepreneurs, are slick and no doubt costly. But they’re certainly better than those Time commercials from the 1980s, in which if you act now, you can get a free alarm clock telephone. Yes, the phone is actually connected to the radio! And remember that corny jingle? Time flies, and you are there. Time cries, and let’s you share.)

In any event, I’m just catching up with the Review section, including the Weekend Confidential column by Alexandra Wolfe. I’ve always gained some insight into her subjects, who include inventors, actors, artists, and musicians. Donald Sutherland, for instance, was urged by his father to major in engineering at the University of Toronto. Instead, he earned a degree in English literature.

That didn’t last long. “They didn’t like me, and I didn’t like them,” he remembers, adding that one teacher said that his voice should be an octave higher and “was unsuitable for English theater.” Before long, she suggested that he leave theater and drive a truck instead. “I suggested if I were to drive a truck she should be careful walking the streets.”

But, for some reason, the one passage that sticks with me comes from Wolfe’s summer profile of rapper 50 Cent (né Curtis Jackson), just prior to his bankruptcy woes.

These days, Mr. Jackson lives a comfortable life in Farmington, Conn., a quiet town near Hartford…. He bought his 50,000-square-foot mansion for $4.1 million in 2003 from the boxer Mike Tyson and, since then, has tried to sell it. He listed it in 2007 for $18.5 million and later dropped the price to $10 million. He took it off the market in 2012. The house has over 20 bedrooms, a gym and a disco with stripper poles. He has two children with two former girlfriends.

Merry Christmas. May your New Year dreams come true. Even if those dreams include stripper poles in your Farmington, Conn., home.

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