Around the office, we discuss weighty issues – recent Supreme Court cases, appropriate regulation of derivatives, pricing of complex options trades, etc. For the past week, however, the water cooler talk has been the somewhat quasi-feud between Johnny Weir and Evan Lysacek.
Unfortunately, I’ve gotten sucked in because as I’m reading Fortune and The Wall Street Journal, a lot of people I know and care about are (I’m sad to say) reading People, US, and the other tabloid magazines. One can only avoid the conversation for so long.
What was interesting is that 100% (yes, every single one) of the people around here adore and side with Johnny Weir. Perhaps it is because he taught himself to figure skate on a farm in the middle of nowhere watching video tapes, then made it to the Olympics. Perhaps it is because he decided he wanted to learn Russian and became somewhat fluent in a short amount of time. It could be that you have a group of successful entrepreneurs that launched their own companies and made a hell of a lot of money playing video games and investing, so we appreciate his rogue-ness (if that is even a word).
As different as he is from our somewhat button-up culture of cashmere sweaters and black coffee, the general consensus is we want to punch Lysacek in the face and go shopping with Johnny. Although by “go shopping”, I get the feeling that people like me would wander off to the Apple store and buy more software and he’d be in the bespoke section of Neiman Marcus or shopping for Jimmy Choos with my sister.
Anyone who has the bravura and moxie to wear this (see Exhibit A) to the Kentucky Derby is awesome in our book. Ultimately, I voted for Weir because he makes life fun and Lysacek seems about as jolly as a rogue band of wet cats on a rainy day scourging for food by the Hudson river pier.
My favorite comment came from a blog run by Michael K over at dlisted.com:
This is the first time in the history of the Kentucky Derby that the race ended early and a winner was not declared. That’s because as soon all the horses spotted Johnny in the audience, they sprouted wings, pushed a crystal horn out of their heads and flew off towards the land of rainbows and glitter. Johnny freed them!
It’s so random I just thought you all should know some of the levity around here (although this is “serious business” to a lot of people!).
At least this debate was funny. The whole Jon vs. Kate thing made me want to break things (I really hate those people – I don’t like talking about them, hearing about them, or even reading about them. It was painful when they were in the news.)
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I'm a private investor who loves architecture, furniture, clothes, history, philosophy, books, cooking, and music as much as I do finance. 
