Conflict of interest

Was contacted late yesterday by a young go-getter reporter from Bloomberg who for some reason has come to believe that I am worth quoting on insurance M&A and other high-end topics, who wondered if I might be willing to comment on the AIG 2009 earning which are being released today.  "Sure," I said.  I actually dreamt that he called me on my cell phone at 5 in the morning and let me in on an earnings video for AIG, wherein executives were cracking a lot of jokes and really trying to make it look like AIG was a great and homey place to work.  At some point in time, the jocular CFO was actually lathering up the disembodied head of some ethereal woman.  I was the only member of the analyst/press corp there, and I thought that odd, and a senior executive guy from another insurer/broker whom I really like was there too, not saying anything, and I wondered why he was there.

In the same dream I went grocery shopping and was able to score a sample piece of stuffed spinach pizza, but somehow I ended up at checkout with nothing but meat, cheese, and bread and wondered if I would be chided for returning home from the store with zero fruits or vegetables.

On the drive to work today I found the best of the three CDs from the Magnetic Fields' epic 69 Love Songs, which is Merge Records' great and lasting contribution to world culture. Though I was somewhat rushing to get in to work to bone up on the AIG sitch, I sat and listened to a song or two once I got to work, bedazzled as I always am by the shimmering brilliance of the lyrics. This song reminds me very much of the early 90s as I lived them.