Army Privacy, Segregation, Drunken Brilliance...

Privacy in the Army was a non starter.

Having a bowel moment with at least 10 other guys, for company, in the same bathroom took care of the delusion of even trying for privacy. Taking a shower with at least ten other bare ass naked guys was like taking a shower in your high school gym locker-room after a basket ball game or gym class. Was a great motivator for six pack abs.(Which never happened to me.)

Any retained desire for privacy went bye bye when it was time for 'short arm' inspection. Where you, with a gazillion other guys in attendance, dropped your pants and drawers and tugged on your schlong to prove to a doctor that you didn't have a venereal disease. A dripping schlong was bad news and reason for confinement and other goodies like being busted down to private.

Thank God an enlarged prostate is an older man's problem. At least we were young and didn't have to have a finger stuck up our asses by a doctor.

~

But then there was segregated privacy. A favorite story of mine originated on a troop transport ship hauling us to Okinawa with a two week stop in Hawaii at Schofield Barracks.

Aboard ship the showers were salt water showers, which guaranteed feeling fucking slimy when you finished but it was better than smelling like shit. After finishing a shower one day, the First Sergeant stopped me and ate my ass out for taking a shower on the Black side of the ship.

Whites with Whites and Blacks with Blacks and never the twain shall meet was the absolute unwritten rule which I had ignored. The First Sergeant was Regular Army, a group virulent with hate and bigotry. Being around those mothers wasn't like spending a day at the beach.

'Regular Army' guys were guys who enlisted in the thirties when civilian jobs were hard to come by. Enlisting in the Army in the thirties was a way out of unemployment and poverty.

~

Being drunk on an airplane in the sixties and early seventies always meant being loaded with creativity and feeling feeling fucking brilliant. That was a great part of being in the bag, sitting in a flying tube on a flight to somewhere, often to NY.

Ideas galore which I wrote down religiously. The bad part was that the next day, when sober, I couldn't read my drunken handwriting. So much for my brilliance under the influence.

But the flight attendants either loved me or didn't care how much booze I ingested as long as I didn't bother them, which didn't happen.Yeah, in spite of wonderful Alcoholics Anonymous my worst days sober have not been better than my best days in the bag.

I had some really great times in the bag. A lot of which, I don't remember but I'm sure they were great.

No matter how hard you try, if you close your eyes you don't disappear.

~

Walter Wriston, Joe Pevehouse, WWII

"Those were simpler times."

Walter Wriston was CEO of Citi Bank plus being a savior of NYC from bankruptcy. For whatever insane reason I sent Mr.Wriston a copy of a book, South by South East by Walter Cronkite. The book's paper cover had a picture of the steamship Rex.

Meeting Mr. Wriston at John Gardiner's Tennis Ranch in the very early 80's is a highlight of my life. He was there with General Haig, Oscar Dunn of General Electric and Mrs.Wriston. General Haig was consumed with his self importance and Oscar Dunn was kinda a smart, good ole boy. My view was that Mrs.Wriston was the smartest of the group.

Mr. Wriston sent me a thank you note in which he said that he had, with his parents, taken the Rex on his first trip to Europe. He ended the note by saying, "Those were simpler times."

Some parts, of just being a civilian during WW II were toxic. Being young and a civilian wasn't all peaches and cream. The social pressure to be in the service was enormous. Being a young, healthy looking male and working as a civilian, on warships in the Brooklyn Navy Yard drew no kudos.You were a fucking draft dodger.

And when the war ended and we came home if you didn't wear a pin, we called The Ruptured Duck, on the lapel of your suit coat people kinda stared at you. The pin was formally known as the Honorable Service Pin and issued when discharged. Where the name Ruptured Duck came from God only knows.The Pins are currently for sale on eBay.

Jew's in uniform looked down at the civilian Jews who wouldn't fight Hitler and Tojo.We didn't bother to ask why they were still civilians. They just had to be fuck offs. Talk about discrimination.

But the war changed a lot of attitudes in NY. A Jew with a yarmulke could walk through German Yorktown in Manhattan without worrying about getting his fucking brains beat out by American Firster's, Third Reich lovers or a combination of the above.

Farewell parties for guys leaving for the Service were the order of the day. They always ended up being big time drunk scenes and they happened with great, almost weekly, regularity. Sometimes I wonder if that is when I started down the slippery slope of alcoholism.

Reminds me of our hospital ship stopping in Honolulu going home back to the States, getting a few hours shore leave and spending those hours drinking shots and beer. We were sure, having survived Okinawa, that we were indestructible. But I don't harbor Woody Allen's wish of becoming immortal by living forever. Just the thought of taking a fucking diuretic and constantly needing to pee for an eternity sounds awful.

Before we got to Honolulu we stopped in Yokohama. A bunch of us went directly, didn't pass GO, to a whorehouse.Once there, the thought of getting a dose and being forced to stay in the Army for another 60-90 days made my erection go away. Despite having paid my money I left. Jackin' off was a great dose preventative. Better than a med but not as good as getting laid.

Around 1980 sitting on a transcontinental DC 10 going to NYC, I was sitting next to gal. By definition a Jew like me can't sit next to someone for almost 5 hours without knowing what the hell that person does for a living. So I asked her. Turns out that this gal was a huge big shot in the consumer credit part of Citi Bank.

She in turn asked me what I did for a living.

"I'm a promoter."

"Really.", she says, "Tell me really what you do".

Out comes my business card which says 'Investment Banker'.

"Wow.", she says, "How did you become an investment banker?".

"I don't know how anyone else became an investment banker but I went to a printing shop and for $3.50 worth of business cards I became an investment banker. Pretty simple."

The woman looked at me like I was a bull with a bastard calf and never spoke to me again.

Those Investment Banker business cards were magic. My self invented title did help get me into a lot of places. But once inside, the interviewer knew, right away, that my master's degree came from the Bronx, Barnes Avenue School of Street Survival..

But then, at the end of the day, it all got down to the Joe Pevehouse mantra that, "If you can't dazzle them with your foot work then blind them with your bullshit". And I invented bullshit.

~

An Open Penitentiary Plus Georgie and Donny

Being 91 ain't all bad. 

Besides just not being dead, I can fantasize about oral sex (certainly not with the Princess) without feeling guilty. It's plenty okay, at 91, to stare at the tight asses of young women, knowing that being an old reprobate is good for my soul. 

After all, staring is as much as I can do, knowing that my drooping, dripping faucet no longer knows from the straight and narrow.

The independent oil and gas business in the 70's and 80's was an open penitentiary and if you didn't  realize that paranoia improved your peripheral vision you would get fucked. Looking over your shoulder was crucial for survival.What the average business man would think dishonest, the average oil and gas guy would think that it was sharp trading. 

Some oil and gas towns and states were worse than some others. Mr. McGee of Kerr McGee once told me that he avoided Denver based acquisitions because of some real life, unhappy experiences.

Midland, Texas, Fort Worth were almost 'straight'. Oklahoma City and Tulsa were very dangerous.Calgary, Canada was truly the last of the Wild West, cowboy towns.Vancouver, B.C. was an absolute no, no. Salt Lake City had a stock exchange that specialized in mostly oil, gas and mineral penny stocks. Unless you had the Mormons on your side you were fucked.

The guys who ran the drilling funds, aka tax shelters, were really dangerous except for guys like George Bush who didn't know how to be totally dishonest. But the Georgies of the world were in very short supply in the Denver oil patch. Phil Anschutz was/is  pretty straight. 

Georgie and his buddy Donny Evans would show up at the Y at noon to work out and recover from one too many the night before. They were serious drinkers. They waited, generally, until evening to start having again, 'the hair of the dog that bit them'. They were some kind of pair to draw to until Donny went straight, quit drinking and with a great assist from Laura Bush, got Georgie to quit.

At least Georgie and Donny  were mostly honest.The last totally honest being was Jesus and it's been all down hill since.

And then we have some button hole patriots who think that wearing an American Flag pin on their lapel makes anything they do okay, no matter how borderline the action. Samuel Johnson famously observed that, 'Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels'. But even those button hole patriots, for the most part, pay no never mind to Pearl Harbor Day. Don't even pay lip service to Dec 7.

But even worse, young people hardly know what happened Dec.7,1941.

On Sunday, Dec.7,1941 I was at the movies with my best friend Buddy Goldfarb. Double feature for either 15 or 25 cents. Don't remember which.

Me & Buddy Goldfarb, Tinian, 1945

The Pearl Harbor attack was announced at the movie theatre. Everyone's reaction was disbelief and indignation. Monday everyone and anyone who could walk, talk and chew gum at the same time volunteered for a service. I went to a Navy recruiting office and was told that I needed a new set of eyes. Then I tried the Army who also told me to fuck off.

Then I started to pound the draft board to draft me which they finally did. Stamped my papers 'Not To Be Sent Overseas'. Orders which in the end were ignored, thanks to my insistence and to my ability as a dot-dash guy, aka radio operator.

My years in the service left me with a bum Okinawa leg and an enriched life with great memories.Very proud to be part of  the Greatest Generation. And still looking down at the grass.

~

Army IQ, Capt.Gooch, Shooting The Rapids

"Grandpa, are you rich?"

"Yeah Jake, but only from time to time." The story of my life. These days I'm working at making a 'from time to time' come back.

The Army was the great equalizer. It had its own definition of stupid. Stupid was being an enlisted man in the Army, particularly a private. All directives were written so that a moron could understand them.Written for the lowest common denominator.

Naturally, if you had an an IQ over 85, you didn't read them. Plus you could depend on the fucking sergeant to scream them at you.

When Captain Gooch came to see me in the barracks at Schofield Barracks, I was certain he was going to try to fuck me and give me something distasteful to do.Gooch really didn't like my big mouth (which was attached to the rest of me) which Gooch considered to be an enormous asshole.

"Feshbach, I really hate to do this but I'm going to make you a corporal. General Buckner asked for two personal radio operators and I chose you as one of them and I can't say that you're a terrific radio operator and still a private. Try giving up being a pain in the ass, it will only hurt for a minute."

Learning how to control and fire a 50 caliber machine gun from a half track, made me edgy. My Mom and Pop wouldn't even allow a BB gun in the house. Joining the Boy Scouts with its uniforms was also out.(Mom and Pop had emigrated from the old country where uniforms and guns were equated with pogroms.)

But when I heard that digging the General's latrine was also part of my job I decided that being busted back to private was better than digging latrines for anyone, except me.

So I became, deliberately, a classic Army fuck up. It was kind of fun, dropping radio transmitters and not being able to dismantle and rebuild the machine gun. It got so that the Sergeant quit asking me to do things. Even taking books off of bookshelves. He said that he was afraid that I would figure out a way to ruin the books.

It was perfect. My fuck up routines got me sent back to the 241st Signal Corp Company, as happy as a pig in shit. Gooch was pissed and the poor bastard that took my place was killed with the General on Okinawa.

And I didn't get busted. Promoted to Sergeant, to replace Sgt. Boggs from Texarkana who was also killed on Okinawa. He wasn't with General Buckner. He was just there.

One of the real great things about being a salesman is that being rejected becomes a way of life. Like breathing. But knowing that each rejection puts you a step closer to a sale makes someone telling you 'no', 'fuck off' or worse becomes another 'so what?' experience. Great training for staying married.

My kid, Joe, used to say a big key to staying married was to always say, "I'm sorry. It's all my fault". Worked for me for 27 mis-spent years while that approach ginned up Guilt, with a capital G.

When you're 20 years old you think you're going to live forever. When you're 91 you hope not but still try to be fit and escape Alzheimer's. Sometimer's is the preferred alternative. This is Noah, talking about the flood.

At my Mom's 70th birthday party my toast to my Mom started with,'Well Mom, everyone knows who their mother is but only God knows who their father is.' When the Princess got knocked up the first time, she hated me. That convinced me that I was the father. The other times she barely spoke to me and hated herself.

Shooting the financial rapids, at 91, one more time. Breathing hard but still breathing, while traveling the Fitness Road, blissfully single.

~