'Money Is Like Manure...', Hello Dolly

'If you think you're crazy then you really must be sane else how would know that you’re crazy.’ Catch 22.

As Groucho Marx so famously said, “If I knew that I was going to live this long I would probably have taken better care of my money."

Ah, where did the many, many millions I earned go? Cause I don't have even a small itty, bitty, little bit of it left. Profligate spending? No respect for accumulating money? Chasing straight women and wonderful hookers? Always spent more than I made?

Guilty as charged of all of the above and more.

Being overdrawn was part of my lifestyle. Me and keeping a record of the checks written in order to know my bank balance weren't even kissin' cousins. My banker in Palo Alto both loved and hated me.

Simultaneously.

My favorite story about the banker, often told, starts with when my OD was getting close to seven figures in eighties dollars. I went to see him when my OD was literally, over $900,000.The conversation got mean when he started pounding me on that fucking overdraft. Naturally, being wrong, I indignantly stomped out of his office.

Needed some medicine, went to the pharmacy directly from the bank and noticed that they were selling lottery tickets (a new phenomena at the time) and bought three. Got back in the car, phoned the banker who was, in my view, a faux Born Again Christian who never used foul language (which I love).

Told the banker that a new development had come up and I was working on a way to cover my OD soon. He became really excited and asked what the new development was."I bought three lotto tickets."

"Fuck you" he shouted and slammed the phone down.

I was totally arrogant about my ability to make money and my arrogance was well founded. My genius, immigrant Pop always said that in America money is up to your knees. You just have to know how to bend down to pick it up. And I, sure as hell, knew how. Old age has stiffened my back. Too bad that my schlong can't get as stiff as the rest of me.

A banker in Iowa once asked me what I was going to do with the money I wanted to borrow. "Spend it", I said. Off the wall he went. He thought that I was being a smart ass and he turned me down. He didn't realize, as promoted in Hello Dolly, that I believed that money is like manure, 'You have to spread it around for it to do any good…'

Making many millions of dollars disappear, is a talent few people want. But I'm living proof that it doesn't take a fucking magician.

While mucho of my bucks were spent on myself, the bulk of the money was spent on others. My friends, my wives, before and after divorces (a half of a half doesn't leave a whole hell of a lot). My four kids and the Ice Princess plus my second ex wife were the real focus of my 'mishuga',crazy spending.

The Ice Princess complained a lot and very fucking bitterly, that I spoiled the kids. But my cry was that I was not "schitzo” and couldn't give her (#1 ex wife) everything she wanted (and she wanted plenty, starting with being a born again clothes horse) and not do the same for the kids.

How she adored and loved I Magnin. Apparently the monthly, horrendous, I Magnin bill suited me fine. The Princess was clothes and shoe horse and looked beautiful in what she bought.

A ton if money was pissed away on people I hardly knew or even cared to know. When I got sober one of my kids had a tennis shop. God only knows how many warm up suits and tennis rackets I bought for flight attendants that I saw just once and didn't care to see ever again.

Trying to support the tennis shop with purchases for flight attendants got boring. Even inherently bright flight attendants became brain dead while on that job. My real interest was in the success my kid and the tennis shop. The seventeen years between marriages were also terrific for spending money.

Would I do it all over again? For sure!! My disrespect for accumulating money spilled over into a ton of good for others and me.

Sadly, as the Italian adage goes 'If you can't stand ingratitude, never do, anything for anybody.'

A Bronx Jew Slopping Hogs

'You're not fit to sleep with the pigs', the ultimate farm country insult. Been there, heard that. My reaction?

'Fuck you and the horse you rode in on and the army behind it.' Slopping and castrating hogs in Iowa was not for a Bronx Jew. Farming is an art and I was no farming artist.

Throw in a big city guy with a fuck you, in your face attitude, and you have one unhappy guy pissing off almost everyone. Yeah, the Princess and my first father-in-law tried to tone me down. No chance.

Me and most of the other people in Mason Fucking City, Iowa (aka River City) had one thing in common: a mutual disrespect and dislike of one another. Actually, I enjoyed wiring everyone for sound, which I did on a daily basis. Got my heart rate up. Great aerobic workout.

Sitting on a fucking tractor going up and down rows, plowing corn, milking cows, having chickens (those filthy little things), vaccinating hogs, driving a dying bull to Ames, going to livestock auctions where everyone smelled like shit, including me, was both boring and annoying. A far, fucking cry from going to the theatre, Yankee Stadium or Madison Square Garden. I even missed schlepping around to art galleries with the Princess.

Losing my financial ass was also really boring. The only things that kept me going were my kids, my liquid protection (booze) and the white hot bond of anger between the Princess and me. Why I stayed married to that broad for another 20 years really escapes me.

So, I bought a set of 25 White Face Herefords to breed, out of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Table top backs: wonderful looking animals. I needed a bull to breed them so I bought a purebred Hereford bull from a neighbor. Turns out that the bull had a 'broken tool '.

(Lesson #1- Beware of farm neighbors/friends offering you "good deals").

I put the bull with the cows in a pasture of a farm I was managing (A Bronx Jew as a farm manager is stuff comedies are made of.) Charlie Pippert was the farmer's name. Strong as an ox, he was. Every week I would drive my pickup truck forty miles on those gravel, country roads to Charlie's place with the radio blaring.

Charley, who I blamed for that purebred bull staying alive while its schlong died, was in my stream of consciousness on a daily basis. Naturally, blaming Charley for the bull's impotence was nonsense but being pissed off at Charley became a soul satisfying project.

Fantasizing about telling Charlie off and beating the shit out of him really turned me on. I was 28 years old.

One day, after the bull was long gone, I had to go to see Charley. While driving in my pickup truck those forty unbelievably awful fucking miles, I rehearsed what I was going to say to Charley and what his response to me would be. Almost an hour, on gravel, of this fantasy conversation wired me for sound. I imagined my part of the conversation and then conjured up his responses. I became increasingly angry with Charley. In fact I became absolutely wild with his fantasy irresponsibility.

As I pulled into the farm yard, Charley and his wife came down the farm house steps. I got out of the truck, strode around the front of it and shouted "Charley, you dirty son of a bitch!" and hit him. His wife screamed and threatened to call the sheriff but I felt that no one was going to "talk" to me that way, and Charley had it coming.

Getting back in back into the pickup, with my blood boiling I drove home and had a few pops to calm down. Booze always calmed me down until it got me wired. Was it any wonder that the Princess thought me, 'bizarre' (Her word describing me to others and me.)

So there I was, sitting in the hog house on a below zero night in Iowa on the ready in case one of my sows had trouble "coming in" (giving birth). The next thing this Bronx Jew knew, my hand was inside the sow helping extract baby pigs. When it was over, I was sick to my stomach and almost heaved my guts out.

(Lesson #2 - You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear and making a hog farmer out of a street guy from the Bronx is damn near impossible.)

And then there was the time I bought 100 feeder pigs from a farmer out of Missouri. By then I was certain that I knew what I was doing and I insisted on a vaccination certificate from the farmer for a deadly virus.

I did not stop to consider that the "honest Missouri farmer" might be giving me a phony certificate, which he did. The pigs grew to 100 plus pounds, became hogs, became sick and started to die. The rendering works truck came by every day to pick up the dead hogs and we had to vaccinate the remainder.

Grabbing and holding on to a 100 pound hog by a hind leg while another guy gave him the shot was some kind of a work out. The hogs eventually stopping dying, but I lost my ass.

One year I purchased a bunch of Red Duroc pigs to feed out. Put those filthy, fucking animals in a small feed lot which restricted exercise. They started dying on me. The vet came out and promptly told me that they were dying of heart attacks. Getting fat with no exercise is as bad for hogs as it is for people.

Another hard earned lesson.

And when there was wet hay or wet corn to be bought, I was the mullet (a fish that's easy to catch) with my mouth wide open ready to be reeled in. And the friendly Iowa farmers fucked me at every opportunity, which I deserved. Once a mullet always a mullet.

When my four year sentence was up, I happily left Iowa. Those unfortunates who got to know me and grew to dislike me were as happy as pigs in shit with my leaving town. Me too!

A Bull With UTI / Donald Trump aka 'Ole Orange Hair'

So there was this high priced pure bred Black Angus bull, stretched out in the pasture away from the cows he was supposed to be breeding. Not natural.The veterinarian opined that the fucking bull had a urinary tract infection and was partially blind in one eye. We forced the bull back on his feet and led him back to the farm yard. The son of a bitch stumbled into an unknown well pit, poked his other eye out. He died as we entered the grounds of Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa which was 120 miles from the farm yard.

So much for a Bronx, Jew farming in Iowa. My specialty as a farmer was to snatch disaster out of the jaws of defeat.

If it is true that one of the three most dangerous people in the world is a Jew with an attorney, then Donald Trump, Ole Orange Hair, should be Jewish. Law suits are one of Trump's specialties.

In the olden days, the 90's, Cipriani’s in the Sherry Netherlands Hotel in the Big Apple was my favorite stomping ground. It had a low ceiling and was loved by women who had bodies of Auschwitz survivors, boobs by Dow Chemical and lips puffed up with Botox. Dressed by Bergdorf Goodman, the women, single, divorced and married thought they looked beautiful. I thought they looked like shit. As phony as three dollar bills.

Trump, a big guy, would stand under the lights under the low ceiling. His wig would take on an orange glow. You sort of expected Gypsy Rose Lee to show up and do a burlesque routine with the Man With The Orange Hair. What a fucking pair to draw to.

Me and Donald Trump aren't even kissin' cousins and I would be stunned, one surprised Bronx Jew, if Ole Orange Hair would even remember me. He most certainly saves his memory for people he can still use or sue or preferentially, in thinking about his wonderful self. He is a fabulous person. Just ask him. Even with that big gut of his escaping from his shirt.

Trump was well on his way to real estate bankruptcy (circa early 90's) when Dale Frey, John Myers and David Wiederecht of the General Electric Pension Trust took that narcissistic, egomaniac in hand and saved his business ass. Taught him how to leverage his name into something with a franchise value and acquire real estate interests, at no cost to him, along the way.

Trump had a well deserved reputation of a low cost builder. GE Pension had taken possession of what was then known as the Gulf Western Building on the corner of 59th street and Central Park West on which the Trust had a mortgage.

The fucking building was vacated because it swayed in the wind. David Wiederecht and Trump came up with the notion to build a hotel around the remaining stripped down framework. Trump had no money; his father had saved his ass from personal bankruptcy a few years earlier.

Dale and John came up with the idea to have Trump take charge of the rebuilding process, build a hotel around the stripped down framework and Ole Orange Hair could earn an interest, out of the profits of the hotel, which he did. (Suzie Mills, the manager of the Trump International Hotel, deserves enormous credit for the success of the hotel).

This has been Trump's formula for the bulk of his ensuing success, putting his name on all those fucking buildings. Put up zero money and earn an interest in the properties. If the deal fell flat then Trump sued the owner to have his, Trump's name, taken off the property.

While the hotel was being built David Wiederecht thought that it would be a good idea that The Genius and I should meet. So I put my fat, lower case, bronx, jewish ass on a airplane and flew to New York for lunch with the self proclaimed genius.

Flying to N.Y. for lunch was something I did with some regularity which highlights what was a major stupidity problem of mine. I really thought that I was a big shot. Time has proved that to be a major fucking piece of bull shit. Trump and I met in the Oak Room at the Plaza Hotel for lunch. Mr. Wonderful, David and me.

In those days, Trump "controlled" the Plaza and there was a regular parade to our luncheon table of his acolytes, genuflecting for Trump who was in hog heaven. Trying to have a conversation in between Trump's pontifications to his worshipers was impossible.

By the time lunch ended, I was wired for sound with frustration at being treated rudely and with zero respect. And that, after what I considered to be a major league effort to get to The Big Apple (I was no longer drinking and getting blasted on airplanes).A total of 10 ridiculous hours, coming and going, in a fucking tube.

After 'lunch', I got back to my hotel and called Trump's office. I told his assistant that I wanted to see Trump again, immediately. His assistant told me that his calendar was too full for me which almost pushed me out the fucking 10th story window.

I pointed out that I had taken a serious trip from California to see him and that he absolutely owed me the courtesy of 20 minutes of his time. She phoned me back and told me to get my ass over to his office right away and the Great One would see me.

Our ‘conversation’ could have been on Saturday Night Live.

What an arrogant, self consumed guy he was/is. He told me that once a person spoke the first five words of a sentence he, Trump, knew what the other person had to say and that he, Trump, didn't have to listen any further. After a few more minutes of this bizarre ‘conversation’, I told Trump that "if they knew what ADD was when he was in the third grade that he would still be in the third grade and that his mind had the staying power of a moth on a hot light bulb".

But history does says that Trump is a bright guy if a boor as well. I never had the desire to ever see him again though I did spot him again in Cipriani's. He was standing under a bright light fixture which made his hair shine ORANGE. Bizarre. He looked right through me. Shit, I couldn't, wouldn't do him any fucking good so he didn't 'see' me.

P.S. Without GE Pension Fund and the education and financing Dale, John and David provided him, Trump would have been another very smart failed RE operator who earlier had needed his Daddy to bail him out. Trump was fighting bankruptcy of his Atlantic City gambling emporium with interest on a loan coming due. His Daddy bought enough chips to cover the interest and didn't cash the chips in.

"Those Were The Days My Friend. We Thought They'd Never End "...

There was a resurgence in unemployment to 25% around 1936.

Hard times had returned, in spades. But my genius immigrant Pop, never seemed to miss a beat. He and my Mom were fabulous parents. We never really knew that the hard times were making their lives very tough. When Monopoly came along we were the first on our street to have the game. That was truly a big fucking deal.

In 1939 it looked as though a high school diploma and me were not to join up with one another. My folks then insisted that I go to an expensive summer school and take a French language course. In New York City, in order to graduate high school, you had to complete a two year language course successfully, something I hadn't been able to do.

So, the summer of 1939 was the Summer of French for me, going to the Rhodes School on the Grand Concourse. Yeah, I finally passed French the following school year having taken fucking French for three years to get two year’s credit. Me and my friends thought that the French were weird because they seemed to speak with a lisp.

My needs when growing up were simple. They revolved around sports and avoiding bringing my report cards home (talk about living with a constant fear of impending doom). Plus if they knew what ADD was when I was in the third grade, I would still be in the fucking third grade.

I once told that to Donald Trump, about Donald Trump.

Trump had the attention span of a moth on a hot light bulb. Except when he was talking. He just loved the sound of his voice. Trump hardly 'heard' anything anyone else was saying. He just waited for the drone of your voice to stop, if he even let you talk, so that he could start talking. While undoubtedly a bright guy he lived inside his own fucking echo chamber. Trump had inadvertently taken the 13th AA step. He was totally powerless over his own bullshit.

Between starting school early and skipping a grade, I graduated from high school at 16.Going to Evander Childs High School on Gun Hill Road in the Bronx wasn't like spending a day at the beach.We had 'Up' and ‘Down’ stairways. And God help you if you were caught going up the down stairway. If you were caught going up the down stairway or vice versa you automatically became a dangerous fucking criminal.
 

Evander High School

The school had 'Flying Squads’ of students who were to see to it that we didn't violate any of the fucking school cockamamie behavioral rules. Those guys were physically feared. To this day it is my conviction that the ‘Flying Squad’ kids became adult thugs and criminals.

We had some 11,000 students and four sessions at Evander. The senior classes started 8:00AM, the freshman at 12:00 noon. Sophomores and juniors at 10am and 11am respectively. Most of the teachers were killing time til retirement. Putting up with street kids who had big mouths and smart ass comments made those teachers about as useful as tits on a boar pig. Ole 'teach' mostly didn't care. Most of the kids were first generation Americans and very street savvy. Drove the teachers nuts.

The Jewish kids were intimidated into trying to get top grades by their immigrant parents who wanted the kids to grow up to become doctors, lawyers and college professors. Dentists didn't make the cut. My parents didn't have a fucking clue what the hell an investment banker was. They pretty much thought that bankers were 'gonifs', not to be trusted.

There was a shack across the street from the school that sold Italian salami sandwiches for a dime. Oh Henry bars were a nickel. We knew we were getting fucked, being charged a penny for a cigarette. That came to twenty cents a pack when you could buy (if you had the money) a whole fucking carton of 10 packs for 50 cents or a nickel for a pack of 20. We couldn't take the cigarettes home. They were an absolute no, no. But we all smoked up a storm, outside of the school when we had the pennies. Didn't inhale, didn't know how to, didn't even think about it.

The neighborhoods supplying students to Evander went downhill in recent years and the school became the first high school in NYC to have metal detectors to monitor the students. Finally closed the son of a bitch down a few years ago.

All my friends were a few years older than me and a few years better athletically. I was tall for my age but short for my friends. Any street smart kid knew that if you brought the basketball, football or baseball and bat you had to be chosen when they picked teams. My Pop understood that rule, so I always had the basketball etc., and so I always got to play. Even in the worst of times my Pop saw to it that I was guaranteed a slot on a team. Whether I was tall or short made no never mind, they had to let me play, if they wanted to play.

Yeah growing up when the streets were our playgrounds has turned out to be a great experience and something to be savored.