Win, Lose Or Draw Or For Money, Marbles Or Chalk

Holy shit. In came, unannounced, via mail, in May of 1946 a government check for $16. About $200 in today's money.(A guess)

In 1946 a then big time government scandal revolved around people stealing (receiving and cashing) government checks that didn't belong to them. My paranoia (Paranoia improves peripheral vision.) caused me to question why the Federal government would send me a fucking check for anything. So in a drawer the check went.

When, after receiving three $16 checks and Purple Heart showed up in the mail, it became apparent that something was going on and it was time for me to find out what the hell it was. I'm slow but hopefully, not stupid.

In the olden days, 1946, you could make a phone call and talk to a living, human being. None of today's having to go from option to option, pressing buttons at least three fucking times before you get a recording that doesn't answer your question.

So, I dialed up information (Yet another almost lost in time option.Thank you Google.) and got a general government phone number from a living person and away I went. 

 

A woman answered the government phone (In those macho days men didn't answer phones.That was strictly woman's work). She patiently, asked me to read some stuff off a check and told me to call the VA. Even gave me the phone number.

The woman at the VA, after a few questions told me that the checks were disability checks. I didn't think that having a big time limp was a disability but the VA and Army thought that I was 30% disabled. I was grateful that the perceived disability wasn't mental.

 

The Princess took care of that option. She always believed that I was 'bizarre' and told me so too many times to count. A basic function of marriage, in the beginning, is to expect the unexpected. After a few years, I just tuned out. Turned my non-existent hearing aid off.

Then, I asked the VA woman about the Purple Heart.Why did I get it? And in the mail? She told me that the bullet that went through my leg on Okinawa, earned me the medal. Being a full time klutz, I pointed out that I was not a hero. Didn't kill a gazillion Japanese, raise the flag on Imo Jima or save lives.

When that bullet found me I was too stupid to be scared and was minding my own fucking business crouched in a fox hole, carbine at the ready, while all hell was breaking loose.

Mailing the Purple Heart was how it was done. The only ceremony (without a band involved) was opening the box in which it arrived. When the Princess threw me out she didn't include the medal. That went into a separate dust bin.

My disability checks and Purple Heart came about because a guy by the name of Woody Daher from Lansing, Michigan convinced me, while walking to a movie at the discharge facility in Fort Devons, Mass., to fill out forms listing problems developed while in the Army instead of going to the movie.

Walking was a problem, as was pleurisy and a touch of malaria.The walking problem was 'accepted', pleurisy and malaria were ignored. God bless Woody Daher.

My mental and emotional service related problems were subject to my first ex-wife's analysis. The VA didn't care. The Princess with the aid of shrinks thought that pills would solve my emotional problems. Booze was my choice of addiction.Thank God for Alcoholics Anonymous.

COLA(Cost Of Living Adjustments) started for the VA in the 60's and have jacked my disability check to $400 while my limp has grown worse. My kid, Kurt, suggested a lift in my shoe so my limp is neither as bad or as apparent.

No matter!!! Win, lose or draw or for money, marbles or chalk, I still look like shit.

 

~

Self Consumed, Donald Trump, Ole Orange Hair....A Reprise

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 plus a mouth bigger than the entrance to a subway station spewing pure nonsense aka bullshit are Trump's specialties.

In my golden days, the 90's, Cipriani’s at 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 in Cipriani's under the low ceiling. His hair piece 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 that would have been 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, sue or in thinking about his wonderful self. He is a fabulous person. Just ask him.

Absolutely the King of Shameless Self Promotion. Even with that big gut of his escaping from his custom made Italian, French or British 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. Ole Orange Hair now places billions of dollars on the value of his name.

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 Pension 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 then 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 for The Genius and I to 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 bullshit. 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 to have lunch with an overweight, self consumed, obnoxious suit, Master of The Universe.

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, 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 say 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. Standing under a bright light fixture, hair shining ORANGE with the air conditioning blowing his wig up. 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 that 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.

~

Expensive Talk, Big Boobs

'Never confuse activity for achievement.' ~ John Wooden.

Kinda like, 'Never confuse brains with a bull market'.

Lessons well learned but plenty fucking tough for me to live with. My big mouth has always been overactive without a filter between it and my brain. In the army my hyper active mouth earned me weeks of KP and the dislike of every non-com and officer that was unfortunate enough to be in charge of me.

Staying out of the guard house was a major accomplishment of mine during that laughter called my army career.

My big mouth was the source of the start of many weird, fucking, unique experiences that made my life 'different'. Inviting a gal, a stranger, to London as my guest seemed natural to me. The invitation rolled out of my mouth like water over a dam, unfiltered.

Sharon was her name. I met her on a flight to Midland, Texas having been summoned from London by my oil and gas patroon in Midland, Deane Stoltz.. Sharon was on her way to Albuquerque on some kind of fashion business.

Remember please, that a man thinks with his eyes and I was always inclined, at the first look-see, to look at a woman starting at her waist up. A habit that got me in a lot of trouble over the years but that didn't stop me from being 'boob addicted'.

While I had never, in my life, seen Sharon before the flight, I felt just sitting next to her for two hours gave me the necessary insight to know that she was perfect for me. Bright, good looking with big boobs gave Sharon the aura, for me, of a perfect soul mate. Couldn't beat that image with a stick and she acted as though she liked sex. So, I invited Sharon to London as my guest.(Turned out that if Sharon liked sober or drunk sex, it was with someone else.)

A few weeks later, on a first class flight from New York, with a guarantee of her own paid for room at Claridge's, in came Sharon who I welcomed at Heathrow with a car and driver. Very big time showing off.

Sharon immediately proved herself to be a sincere pain in the ass. While I worked all day, Sharon was a dedicated wine drinker who loved to smoke dope as well all day. I did neither. All I wanted was good company and some sex. It quickly became very fucking boring with Sharon being half stiff all the time and my schlong inactive. Having sex with a woman, three sheets to the wind had all the appeal for me of a sore ass in vinegar.

It was not very fucking complicated. I was getting neither sane conversation or sex. So, after two days of that action I sat Sharon's sorry ass down in my suite and said, "Sharon, your meter has expired. Your time is up and it is time for you to go home."

At the end of the day I felt pretty fucking stupid for having invited her but smart for sending her home - cut my losses short.

Looking for the unexpected has always been a driver for me. Too often the unexpected was pretty fucking expensive and always as a result of shooting from the hip with my big fucking mouth.

"Regrets? I've had a few but too few to mention." ~ My Way, Sinatra

Slice And Dice For Mashed Potatoes, Living The Unknown, The Richemont

Trading our civilian clothes for Army khaki was like becoming a chameleon, in reverse.You went from different colored clothes to one color, known in the Army as 'shit, brindle brown', aka khaki.

I had just arrived, by train, in Fort Dix after saying goodbye to my crying Mom and my proud as punch Father in Pennsylvania Station, New York City later known as The Big Apple, The Capital of Temptation.

Every kid going through the Penn Station gate knew that their lives had taken a turn into the unknown but we all knew that we had a new family. The Army was our new family. And through all of the fucking wisecracks, none memorable, we knew that our family was run by our new lords and masters with whom we could not argue, ignore or dispute a decision.

Our freedom of thought and action was history.

Standing bare-ass naked, tugging on our schlongs, doing what was called 'short arm inspection' all to prove that we didn't have a 'dose' of gonorrhea. That first short arm inspection turned out to be repetitively common. As long as that 'thing' didn't drip we were safe. At 91 1/2 it drips, not from gonorrhea but from a diuretic.

There ain't anything like a free thinker in the Army. I don't think that any of us realized that our days of independent thought were as dead as an old man's sex life. (Sadly, at 91 1/2 I know all about that.)

No menus. High carb foods with mashed potatoes were a staple, the cornerstones of lunch and dinner. Fried potatoes at breakfast. Doing KP, peeling spuds, mopping floors and scrubbing enormous pots and pans were chores to come. All a long way from a 5 star hotel.

The Regular Army guys, pre Pearl Harbor enlistees, mostly looked like shit with both huge guts and huge appetites. Nutrition meant eating everything that wasn't nailed down which always seemed to include mashed potatoes at lunch and dinner. The regular Army guys also seemed to have a ferocious appetite to fight, big guts and all.

While the first day was truly memorable, spending the first night sleeping in a cavern like barracks with a bunch of guys that you didn't know from Adam's fucking odd ox was wildly different. Being 'homesick' never entered my stream of consciousness.

There was a certain electricity in the atmosphere with the thoughts of an unknown future. It really dominated my thinking, starting with the First Sergeant screaming 'drop your co..s and grab your socks' at 6:00 AM. That screaming, fucking voice eliminated any need for an alarm clock.

One day, some 40 years later, having lunch with a Swiss banker at the Richemont Hotel in Geneva, Switzerland I became distracted by the tall, willowy, blond beauties have lunch with their swarthy, Mideastern keepers and that first day at Fort Dix came into my mind.

Going from being a buck private making $50 a month to sitting at the Richemont having lunch in the middle of all that opulence seemed bizarre. And it was.

The Army taught me that living in the here and now, living in the unknown, was exciting and mostly great.Staying and eating at the Richemont was exciting and fun. It too was the ultimate in living in the unknown.

~

Currency Controls, Living High On The Hog

'Currency controls? What the hell are controls, Peter?'

While employed by the NYSE firm, Irving Lundborg & Co. I was deemed uncontrollable and needing proper supervision. So, I had my own.personal, compliance officer. Living on the edge, skirting the fucking rules were my specialty. And the powers that were at Lundborg decided that they needed a pair of extra eyes to supervise my trades.

Peter Costigan had all the necessary bona fides to ride herd on me: Stanford Undergraduate and Stanford Business School degrees. Most important he had a great sense of humor and with me, was a fucking hard drinker, though not as hard as me and he did escape my fate of needing to go to Alcoholic Anonymous, which turned out to be a life changing experience.

Peter often went to London to flog stocks.One day, at a boozy lunch, he commented that his niche market in London were investment companies that owned investing dollars.The UK had at the time, 'currency controls' to restrict pounds leaving the UK. So Peter would trundle off to London, ensconce himself at the Connaught and generate commission from investment companies that owned dollars. Peter concentrated on local California company shares.

One of my great, most fun, drinking experiences was with Peter and his closest friend, Bill Kneas. One evening, after getting suitably fucking smashed at the North Beach Restaurant, Peter left Bill and me to continue our drinking and get more fucking brilliant with each drink.

A most wonderful feeling when really smashed is the feeling of being a genius. No chance to replicate that feeling when sober. I see and feel all my 'pimples' when sober.

Bill lived in Marin and his wife came in to get him after speaking with him on the phone. Bill asked me to care for his car, an Oldsmobile Convertible. In those days I thought that genius was my first calling and being a big shot my second calling. So the Princess and I had a place in the City, at the Clay Jones Apartments, with a fabulous view of the Bay and Golden Gate Bridges. Loved to sit in an easy chair, inhaling Grants 8 Year Old Scotch smashed, enjoying the view.

The parking attendant at the North Beach told me that he had two Olds converts, a blue and a gray. Which one did I want? I chose the gray and drove off in it. All hell broke loose when it was discovered that I chose the wrong color car. Batting .500 was not acceptable. After suitably apologizing to the owner upon return of the car the following day, I sold the guy some stock in King Resources which then went bankrupt.

After looking into 'currency controls' and deciding that a prepaid London gig would be terrific for me, I went to my 'pay stations' in Midland, Texas and convinced the CEO's of five public oil and gas companies that pre-conditioning London to Midland company shares would pay off with the English buying their shares when they became available sans currency controls.Great trade: I produced results spending gobs of their fucking money.

My first step was to meet Peter and his wife Anne in London where Peter was to introduce me around. That was not, by any measure, a spectacular success. But Peter's introduction of me to Gordon Grender plus Bill Tichy's (a friend and Dean Witter analyst) introduction to Don Moynihan of Witter's London office began almost 15 years of London success and pleasure. It was pure joy living for months at Claridge's Hotel, shuttling in and out of London on the Concorde, making life long friends with lots of laughs along the way.

I damn near drowned in my own ego.

This go round started in 1977.Currency controls were lifted by Mrs. Thatcher in 1979. Like a blind hog, I found an acorn.

~