Liz’s Advice Blog

Dear Liz,

How come some people in Washington, DC don’t know how to act? Moreover, how come some people run round like slave times just ended?

Thomas Claylumbian Heights, DC

Dear T.C.,

I enjoy fielding the big, tough, vague questions as much as sixth graders enjoy hitting a life-sized teddy bear using a science book as a bat when they have a substitute teacher. That’s why I got started in substitute teaching. It is a craft. Miss Stevens, it was right down the line! Great, one more pitch and then we’ll begin class. Hey guys, guys that was two pitches guys, why would you guys lie to me? Guys!

Of People in Washington

More often than not, Dwayne Yurman can be seen in a natty suit and tie, showing upscale condos to top buyers hoping to turn their great credit into negotiation gold. "It’s like a flee market!" according to Yurman’s manager at RE/MAX and RE/MAX and Son. But on several days of each retail week, 44-year-old Yurman takes a day off, puts on a Lincoln beard and runs around Washington, DC, leading one of Natalie Zanin’s acclaimed Historic Strolls’ jogging tours. (Customers may choose to run, in-line skate, or walk fast.)

Historic Strolls began in 1998 with a couple of costumes and a rubber chicken and one chicken rubber. Today it has over twenty hard-working, fast-acting actor/guides. To make the cut, each actor must finish a ball-busting 10k run interspersed with monologuing sprints. A formality that every applicant thus far passed, the test nevertheless elicits painful vomiting at its conclusion. (The race is in broadly historic costume and obligatorily conversational.)

In "Undiscouraged! The Civil War: The Jog," Dwayne Yurman recreates the erstwhile sixteenth president, Lincoln. Yurman’s tour lasts five hours, during which, he takes his countrymen all ’round his city, Washington City of the 1860s. Leading an historic tour requires a dedication to character surpassing that of any other job. Actor/guides forgo paper coffee cups, unavailable in the 1860s, during their routes, which begin and end at one of 11,000 city Starbucks Coffee locations. Actor/guides manage to scrimp turn-of-the-century caffeine conventions, requesting that baristas pour espresso into cupped hands belonging to members of the group. Their courtesy is rewarded by discounted tours and two good, old-fangled bonuses, a revolving mystery history perk that can include chickens, rubbers, and Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol themed coffee hands.

According to his coworker, a graduate of Tisch School of the Arts at NYU, Dwayne Yurman is notoriously difficult to get close to. His mother relates that she "once had to go to an open house just to ask him what he wanted to eat for supper, ziti or what. No. it wasn’t an open house. It was a tour. I thought I was at an open house, but he was wearing a Lincoln beard and we were outside. I didn’t like it, what I saw and heard, because it was difficult to stand in one place for very long. Dwayne can’t act. I gather, someone else probably told you first. That’s the worst part of it. Doesn’t know how."

Yurman’s signature method is by most accounts a brave attempt. With no formal training, he is the only non-actor in the program. Yurman won over his hiring summer intern with a rambling and affectionate knowledge of the Civil War during a 10k time finished in under two hours. At the start of his interview, he had said he’d appeared in television commercials, but later admitted to embellishment. He then claimed he had been a reenactor on America’s Most Wanted, also false. A fellow Historic Strolls guide and recent émigré from 1776 Philadelphia, Alex Juarez had nothing but praise for the troupe’s elusive Lincolnian: "It is amazing what [Dwayne's] doing. [He] just really likes the time period."

In his own words, Dwayne Yurman says, "It’s a dream come true. That a white man could play a black Lincoln."

Seriously stop playing bear baseball, or you guys will be visited by three monologuing sprints,

-Me

Dear Liz,
Why is the uranium market so illiquid?
-Phillip Old Man’s Apartment, NY

Dear Phil,

Back in November of 1985, Doc Brown was forced to broker with Libyan terrorists to power his flux capacitated DeLorean.  Though he was trading plutonium, uranium fuel bundles aren’t bundles easier to trade.

As Phil points out, everyone is aware that the uranium market is not liquid.  No one says it is.  No one makes that mistake. 

But why?? 

For one thing, it’s not traded in a commodity exchange, it’s bought and sold by crazy, wild-eyed old scientists for time machines, so there are scant speculators ensuring liquidity.  Sometimes, the buyer may be a kid who shows up asking questions about this Sports Almanac, and if that ever happens… he’s going to unhinge the market and unravel the very fabric of space-time.

A commodities exchange would attract market makers, hedging uranium without handling it, increasing market stability.  We‘d all want to get in on it.  Enron never traded uranium.  Nobody mentions that when they talk about Enron.

Why aren’t there uranium futures contracts? 

I don’t know. 

This may be the narrow view.

Listen, I’m an insider.  I call uranium U when I need to make a point and I’m short on time.  I say, U needs to be like the other markets.  U needs an exchange.  It’s like drugs.  If you legalize drugs, only law abiders will have drugs — where law abiders applies to drug possession.  The point is, we will all have some.  So someone (Phil: you) should take preliminary measures and call People magazine or US magazine saying U is a fun shade for spring 2007. 

Back to uranium futures.

Yellowcake is a fun cake for spring,
-Me