Mr. Clean....Even If You Close Your Eyes You Don't Disappear

"Prediction is difficult, especially about the future." or "It ain't over until it's over.”, Yogi Berra wisdom.

Last week, my favorite, optimistic, and only cardiologist Dr.Nguyen made an appointment to see me in six months. At 91, rowing upstream, to make it, yet for another six months. Too bad that Dr.Nguyen's optimism can't bring my dead 'schlong' back to life.

In the seventies, some 25% of all the onshore oil and gas produced in the U.S. was produced within 180 miles of Midland, Texas, the capital of hard drinking, hard living old fashioned wildcatters. Entrepreneurs to the end. Being around them, much less traveling with them was always serendipitous.

Mr. Clean (Tall guys are called Shorty.) as I called Tom Brown, was the ultimate hard living, hard driving, fucking obnoxious when drunk, human being. Every trip with him was always memorable. Something unexpected always happened.

One time he and Donny Evans came to London to speak at a one day oil and gas seminar that I had organized. Oil men Deane Stoltz, Joe Pevehouse, Ken Whiting plus a very smart Denver attorney, Bill Fishman were speakers. Drew a big crowd of institutional investors plus the usual ration of fucking flakes who wanted to have a free lunch at Claridge's.

The Bobbsy Twins were well on their way to becoming blind drunk while flying from Midland to Dallas to New York. Once aboard the Concorde for the trip to London, they settled in for some serious drinking until Mr. Clean got nasty and belligerent and the flight attendants cut him off. Donny was less drunk, which was easy done.

When they arrived at Claridge's, Brown started his London stay off by calling the London cabbie, loudly, a 'stupid son of a bitch'. The cabbie may have been stupid but at that moment Mr. Clean wasn't any smarter. By paying the cabbie the fare with an oversized tip I stopped him from beating the shit out of Mr. Clean.

It was a Sunday night and Claridge's Hotel lounge was as dead as a married man's sex life, or my sex life. Same, sad deal. Brown stormed into the lounge drunk wearing a crumbled, wet, corduroy suit literally screaming, 'Where are the women?'. He even embarrassed the other oil and gas geniuses who were kicking back with a drink or three.

Brown never recognized that alcohol and erections only worked when you're 20 years old. Only one of the many London sex clubs was open and Brown and Evans left the group and went to the club in the pissin' rain.

Tom Brown was the ultimate hard living oil man. He started his business life as a salesman with a tire company and evolved into a drilling contractor/producer in the oil business. He lived a lot longer (into his seventies) than I had predicted. He made, lost and remade a fortune. Tom and I spoke a few weeks before he died and he told me he was happy. "I've lived one hell of a life", said Tom. What a fucking understatement!!!

Brown's wife at that time, Roz, was a classic. Great looking gal but one who had too many face lifts and had inhaled too much booze. Her face seemed frozen in time. Roz was a terrific drinking companion for Mr. Clean with an appetite for booze that seemed unquenchable. Roz was a walking example of the AA adage: one drink is too many and 100 isn't enough. Been there, done that.

One afternoon while we were on a stock promoting trip to LA, Roz was with us I was "assigned" to baby sit her in the United Airlines lounge while Mr. Clean was making a side trip to Santa Ana promoting the stock.

Before Roz and I left for the airport, Roz had had already inhaled her favorite 'get up and go' drink of half a glass of milk mixed with half a glass of Jack Daniel's Black Label. She was barely lucid while complaining about how terrible she felt all the way to LAX.

Once in the United Airline Lounge, Roz's taste was simple: chilled vodka no vermouth. Roz thought that her breath didn't smell by drinking vodka. She sipped the vodka through a sterling silver straw she had made by Tiffany.

Tom showed up shouting, "I'm thirsty". Roz had already put away at least five drinks before he arrived. He then inhaled three or four while Roz kept pace with him until our flight was called. On the 50 minute ride from L.A. to S.F. both Roz and Tom inhaled, I repeat, inhaled, at least four drinks each. They were high velocity drinkers.

That night at dinner they had after dinner drinks, by the gulps, without eating dinner. They got into a roaring, drunken argument, and we had to go back to the hotel. It was both very boring and surprising that either one was still able to walk. Or hadn't killed one or another.

The next day Mr. Clean made a corporate presentation to about 150 suits at the North Beach Restaurant in San Francisco. But before the presentation Tom had at least two Bloody Marys, then had a couple of belts of booze plus wine at lunch. I was pissing my brains out after consuming what felt like gallons of Perrier water. The more Mr. Clean had to drink, the greater the company oil and gas reserves had grown. That day they grew by a factor of three or four without drilling a well.

After making the presentation, Tom stayed at the restaurant with two of my friends Peter Costigan and Bill Kneas. They ordered "six packs of stingers on the rocks”. Getting really bored I went back to the hotel.

When I returned to the hotel, Roz phoned my room and pleaded with me to go get Tom because she felt like shit and thought that she might be drawing her last breaths. So like a fucking idiot I did. Brown and my friends were blind, roaring drunk and all four of us went back to the hotel.

That evening, we were going out for dinner with some friends of mine. Roz came down to the lobby lounge looking regal (she was tall) in a white dress. She announced that she felt like hell and only by drinking two glasses of milk and bourbon was she able to join us. I knew that I was in for a very long night.

Sitting in the lounge drinking chilled vodka Roz suddenly jumped up, announced that she didn't feel good and was going back to the room. Brown, Peter and Bill never missed a beat. Repeating the same fucking stories over and over again and laughing like crazy with each repetition like it was the first time they heard the story. Very fucking boring.

There was a great looking gal sitting by herself, sipping wine and I went over and asked her if she was a "working girl” to which she proudly said "yes". She became my companion for the evening.

She literally saved Tom’s life with the Heimlich maneuver after a snack at Trader Vic’s almost choked Mr. Clean into the next world.The hooker was a school teacher moonlighting as a hooker but only giving blow jobs. She was intelligent company and a great sex partner. Should have taken her home.

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The Irresistible Patti Brown

Tuning 91 this week, God willing, and I still look like shit....'Everything changes, everything remains the same'.

So in my 50's along comes Patti Brown a once practicing Catholic but with her Irish still shining through her spiritual soul. Strong feelings of community are the basis of spirituality and Patti was loaded with a great sense of community.

Beautiful, slightly chunky, big boobs, very smart and an enthusiastic tennis player, with easy laughter, was Patti Brown. Jews and Catholics seem to connect easily and often. Jesus was a Jew so we have 'Jews For Jesus' which I always thought was a punch line for a religious joke.

Thinking of those big boobs reminds me of the first and only time that I tried sex on Patti. So one evening, Patti was sitting in my lap, a little tipsy from inhaling too much wine (or else why would she be in my lap) and Patti said, "I feel horny."

Taking that comment as a signal from God my left hand went swiftly and directly to Patti's right tit. Patti brushed my hand away and she left my lap as though she was shot out of a fucking cannon. For sure, Patti wasn't that horny.

Patti became a focus of my life, sexless notwithstanding. Patti was a notch above slightly crazy but really smart, a wonderful combination. Being around totally predictable and sane people is really plenty fucking boring. Patti was anything but boring.

And Patti loved to laugh which, for me, was a substitute for an orgasm. (How was I to know that at around age 87 me and orgasms would take different paths?)

Patti was a dedicated devotee of astrology and our 'signs' made us a 'perfect' pair. Until Patti, gratefully, came into my life, cancer was a sickness and a scorpion was a deadly fucking bug. Turned out that Cancer and Scorpio are Astrological signs.

Also it turns out that Patti and I may have been a perfect pair in Astrology but not in life. We went out a lot. No dating. 'Dating' implies sex of which I enjoyed none with Patti. We just went out, a lot.

Fortunately Patti's Irish DNA didn't include the Irish proclivity for booze. ('An Irish queer is a guy who likes women better than booze.' Quote forever true).

In the late seventies EST and having your colors done, were the rage. EST had its pseudo shrink approach where no matter how good your life was, they were going to make it better. The Princess had thrown me out. How much better could life be?

Getting your 'Colors' done was a Patti Brown, off the wall, kind of a thing. So up to SF Patti schlepped my Jewish ass to get my colors done. Which meant finding out which color clothes best suited my personality which in turn would make made me more attractive. At that time my 'Brioni Awakening' hadn't really yet happened. Takes a lot to look like shit in a Brioni suit.

Throw in Turnbull, Asser shirts, Hermes ties, Weston shoes and even I could look good. Never great until I became eligible for the third of three stages in life. First you are young, then you become middle aged, then you're looking great.

After hours of being questioned by a color 'expert', who was a nice woman and clearly a frustrated shrink and quite a bits nuts, I was declared an Autumn. Patti's presence saved me from institutionalizing myself during the q and a.

We then went to the North Beach Restaurant and had a great WOP dinner and headed, exhausted and stuffed, back to Palo Alto on the then new Hwy. 280. Very light traffic made it feel like a deserted, back road in those early days.

Patti asked if she could take a nap. A day that included going to the City, talking to the whacked out colors woman and directing my colors inquisition had wiped out that poor broad. I told Patti to do it. Then, in spite of having a ton of coffee earlier and driving 70 miles an hour, I joined her for a quick nap.

My eyes opened when the car took down two saplings, slammed into and under a chain link fence and bounced off of huge oak tree before it came to a halt. Driving on snow and ice in Iowa had taught me not to hit the brakes. My Mercedes convertible was totaled but thanks to God, both Patti and I were able to walk across the field to a lone house and get rides home. Both of us virtually unscathed.

The punch line to that saga is that unbeknownst to me, the Princess, in all her fucking self righteousness, had cancelled my car insurance. Starting over for me without a car was made all the more tough.

I had just quit drinking and Patti, was wonderful to and for me. Patti gave me a purpose in life with her smile, laughter, brains and her touch of insanity. (It takes one, to know one).

Saw Patti, the other day, for the first time in decades and she looked fabulous. Slim, trim, beautiful and still with a knockout smile and laugh.

In the end Patti's Astrologer was on the money in telling Patti to 'kiss me off'. Living with someone brings out the worst in me. Which can be plenty bad.

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Profligate Spending, Wham...Bam...Slam...Goodbye Ma'am

Fat and skinny had a race, all around the pillow case. Fat fell down and broke his face; Skinny won the race.

• There was a Jewish oil guy in Wyoming who was being offered, a ranch that included some Black Angus cattle that were being grass fed on the ranch. The oilman reacted with a classic line (true story)... "I never own anything that's eating while I'm sleeping"

• The Italians have a great line, "Unless you can stand ingratitude, never do anything for anybody". Makes it essential to do good things for good's sake, to have a good name, which is its own reward.

• Ever wonder, as I do, what 40-year-old hookers turn to when they quit hooking. Fucking for fun or sport fucking seems out. Those worn out hookers probably marry guys who have little interest in sex.

• In the late seventies the Regency Hotel bar in The Big Apple used to attract older (thirty something) hookers. Very expensive. The crème de la crème of hooker bars in NYC was the Sherry Netherland Hotel bar. Knockout looking women, seriously expensive (sadly, way out of my pay scale) but the opening, introductory question, no matter what the pay scale was, "Are you a working girl?”

• The all time fun bar in NYC was Maxwell's Plum. Always 4-5 deep with young guys looking to fall in love for an hour or two (wham, bam, slam, good bye ma’am) and the gals mostly looking to fall in love. Made little difference to me because I couldn't get laid in a whore house with a $100 bill pasted on my forehead much less pick up a straight woman for some 'action '. Without booze in me I had no delusions. Also, a guy in his 50's chasing young pussy is a non starter, except if the guy is rich and open handed.

• In Midland, Texas there was Lonnie, the bellman and an absolutely great guy, who was Midland's premier pimp (great personality with a stable of girls at his disposal). In the 70's Midland was a booming oil town and hookers were attracted to it. The last I heard Lonnie was shining shoes and making everyone laugh.

• Calgary, Canada was the last of the Wild West towns with the hookers patrolling "hotel row". The French Maid was a low down bar with upscale Johns. I stepped into an elevator at the International Hotel with a young woman already in the elevator. The elevator doors closed and she promptly grabbed my 'privates' and asked if I wanted a 'trick'. While being at a loss for words isn't my style, I was so startled that the elevator arrived at my floor before I could say 'No thanks'. Turned out that the hookers never left the elevators until some one said, 'Yes, how much do you charge?'

• In retrospect, I find it remarkable that I did my business and evolved into a very successful one-man 'investment bank'. With it all, I developed a deep store of knowledge of the oil and gas business plus a formidable address book of folks that are big and small time in the world of finance. This all happened both in my drinking and non drinking days.

• Sober, I raised some $1 billion (adjusted for inflation) from natural gas pipeline investments for blue chip pension funds while making good friends with the people I solicited for investment dollars. Bunches of money came my way which was promptly dispersed to my kids, ex wives, friends, hookers and strangers.

• Drinking or not I squeezed a ton of living out of my profligate and busted on my lower case jewish ass lives. In the bag or not, I lived on the edge always looking for the unexpected. Both courses were nerve wracking and wonderful, simultaneously.

• While I am busted on my ass, I am wealthy with friends dead and alive, not including my first ex wife who actively disliked me. I'm really sorry that she died but I sure don't miss her.

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