24 Hours With The Hardest Drinking Hardest Living Couple I have Ever Known

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 drink, hard living old fashioned wildcatters. Entrepreneurs to the end. Traveling with any of them was an experience.

Mike 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. Mike 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 Mike.

I traveled in the U.S. of A in the 70's and early 80's, mostly in Mike's "burner" (aka private jet) after he made his first fortune. Mike's wife at that time, Edith, was a classic. Great looking gal but one who had too many face lifts...her face seemed frozen in time. Edith was a terrific drinking companion for Mike with an appetite for booze that seemed unquenchable.

One afternoon, I was "assigned" to baby sit her in the United Airlines lounge in L.A. while Mike was making a phone call. She already had some drinks before we took the cab to the airport. Her taste was simple...chilled vodka (didn't smell, or so she thought). She sipped the vodka through a sterling straw she had made by Tiffany. Mike showed up saying "I'm thirsty". Edith had put away at least five drinks before he arrived. He then inhaled three or four while Edith kept pace with him until our flight was called. On the ride from L.A. to S.F. (50 minutes) both Edith and Mike inhaled, I repeat, inhaled, at least four drinks each. 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 Mark.

The next day Mike and I made a corporate presentation at a North Beach Restaurant in San Francisco. But before the presentation, Mike had at least two Bloody Mary's and 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. Mike stayed at the restaurant with two of my friends. They ordered a "six pack of stingers on the rocks", waiting for the next drink was too tough for them. When I returned to the hotel, Edith phoned my room and asked me where Mike was. I told her and she pleaded with me to go get him as she thought she might be drawing her last breaths. So I did, feeling like an idiot. My two friends and Mike were roaring drunk, and I took Mike back to the hotel.

That evening, we were going out for dinner with some investment friends of mine. Edith 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.

There was a great looking hooker 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 saved Mike's life with the Heimlich treatment later in the evening). The hooker was a school teacher moonlighting as a hooker but only giving blow jobs. She was okay, I enjoyed it. More on travel with Mike and Edith in my next blog.....

Living For The Experience and Making No Money With The Bishop And The Vatican Bank

In 1970-1971, I helped found a venture capital group. As it turned out, the enterprise was disaster in spite of my partners being very successful in the venture capital arena. Not only was our basic concept terrible but the business plan really sucked. But the notion took me down a great lifetime experience road with the Vatican Bank (aka The Institute for Religious Works), Archbishop Paul Marcinckus and even The Knights of Columbus. I will be forever grateful to the Bishop for adding to the richness of my life (and I never "sold" him one deal).

One of my partners knew a guy (Lloyd Hand) who had been Chief of Protocol for President Johnson, so he knew everybody and his uncle. We paid him $10,000 ($56,000 today) plus travel expenses which added another $3,000 ($17,000 today) to introduce us to the Bishop who ran the Vatican Bank. The Bishop, we were told, ran the bank and was Mayor of Vatican City as a result of saving the Pope's life in the Philippines when the Pope was attacked by a nut with a knife. More on the Bishop and the Knights of Columbus in a later blog. That trip was, at the end of the day, a wild, booze driven, insane trip. Travel for me back then was a way to get away from a wife who disliked me (though I didn't recognize it at the time), really drink big time and walk around feeling like shit every day.

At that time, one of my kids was on the Mishmar David Kibbutz in Israel. So I thought I would "stop by" and see him before I went to Rome for my business. I thought Rome and Tel Aviv were "kissin' cousins", close by one another. That was a major misconception...almost 5 hours of drinking in the air. So I spent a night at the kibbutz which was memorable but hardly like staying at the Carlyle in N.Y. But this was but a few years after the 67 war and idealism and sacrifice were the mode in Israel. So it was impressive, if uncomfortable.

I went to Rome and the Vatican the following day to meet with the Bishop. The night before the meeting, we went for a horse and buggy ride to get acquainted with Rome. Expensive and a piss poor way to see Rome. Very boring. The next day we went to see the Bishop who was from Cicero. He had been an "advance man" for Pope Paul VI. The Bishop's hands were like ham hocks and he was as tough as nails. Smoked Pall Mall cigarettes like there was no tomorrow. But, at that point I was smoking 4 1/2 packs of Lucky Strikes (no filters) every day with yellow fingers. So the Bishop and I looked like two chimneys and that was right up my alley.

My partner who insisted on doing the major part of the presentation was a very nice, smart guy whose voice never seemed to stop "droning". Your eyes would glaze over as he droned on and on. He could put a sore ass in vinegar to sleep. The Bishop managed to stay awake and while he was not a financial man, he knew a dumb deal when he saw one and turned us down, out of hand. But it was for me, through the booze driven, cigarette haze and yellowed fingers, a fabulous experience and the beginning of a wonderful long term personal relationship with Bishop Marcinkcus...a great person guy in spite of his fruitless efforts to convert me. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. My trip back to SF was out of sight with unreal booze laden memories. More on that later.

Enjoying Being "In The Hole"

Circa 1980
"F..k You!" my banker said and hung up. My banker of that moment was a man of clean living except for his drink of choice, lots of wine. He was also a man of deep faith or so he said. Wouldn't say s..t if he had a mouthful.

I had just left his office after getting into a beef with him over a combination of debts and over drafts of over $900,000 secured by nothing except my sincere conviction that I would "do a deal" and repay him. He thought that I could give him a partial payment and that I was holding out on him. He refused to understand that I was supporting an ex-wife, helping my kids get started in business and living an above average life style starting with always flying first class. I hated the back of the "bus" for starters plus the time it took to deplane.

After leaving his office, I drove to the local pharmacy to pick up a prescription and noticed they were selling lottery tickets (lottery tickets had just entered the economy). I purchased 5 tickets and called the banker from the car and said "I have great news for you, I'm working on paying off my entire loan and overdraft." All excited, he virtually shouted "Great what are you doing?" I said "I just bought five lottery tickets." "F..k You!" he said and hung up.

I ultimately paid that loan down to $90,000 and was always current on my interest payments. But the big honchos in S.F. weren't satisfied. They said that I had turned that loan into an "evergreen loan." They threatened to take me to court to collect. I, in turn, threatened to sue them for lending me the money (Lender liability it was called). So we had a standoff. They proposed that I pay $50,000, and we could say goodbye to one another. I then called my friendly banker who went berserk and screamed that it would hurt his bonus. I volunteered to make up the shortfall which didn't suit him. After deciding that I really owed the money and I that didn't want my banker screwed on my account, I repaid the bank 100 cents on the dollar plus accrued interest…well over $100,000. The banker, in gratitude for paying off the loan, then refused me a small loan saying that he didn't want my name on his books.

The Italians have a proverb: "Unless you can stand ingratitude, never do anything for anybody."

In the Tank to the Bank

Circa 1972
"He said that he was going to jump out the window of his 9th floor room in the Century Plaza Hotel in L.A.!" My first ex-wife's response to my poor banker's frantic phone call was "So what do you want me to do about it?" Then she hung up. My whole world was coming to an end. I was a big time stock broker in Palo Alto, CA, and the stock market was in the tank. I was drinking A LOT and in those perilous times I decided to raise money to drill for oil in Israel (a story in itself).

I was in L.A. calling on a few executives of the now gone bye, bye MCA which was loaded with big time rich Jews. I wanted to see if they would participate in my drilling adventure. It was a labor of love for me…I had become an ardent Zionist. But the MCA office was like a tomb. Most of the executives had borrowed money against their MCA stock whose price had fallen off a cliff. They were underwater, and their bankers were calling it to their attention.

After my unsuccessful visit, I went back the the hotel and stretched out for a few minutes before going to the bar. The phone rang, and my banker informed me that the bank examiner would be at the bank the next day. He asked me what was I going to do about my outsized, underwater loan. He had loaned me too much money on non transferable, investment letter stock. I said "Look Walter, I'm down here in L.A at the Century Plaza hotel. I'm busted on my ass. What the hell do you expect me to do?" He screamed that I had to do something. "Okay", I said, "I'm on the 9th floor of the Century Plaza Hotel. I'm going to lay the phone down, open the window and go out of it!" and I hung up. He panicked and called my first ex-wife who basically told him that she would look forward to hearing the news of my demise. I had a ton of life insurance as well as her hard core dislike/resentment of me.

That night at the downstairs bar and restaurant, I was overwhelmingly depressed by my impending doom. A hooker came up to me and asked if I'd like a "trick". I said,"Listen sweetheart, if Gina Lollobrigida got on top of me naked I'd probably piss". That really turned the hooker off, and she was gone in a flash. No follow up requests. I was grateful.

For the record, when my life moved back up the roller coaster, my shaky bank loans were ALWAYS repaid…although very, very slowly. Incidentally, threatening suicide is very a old school Jewish thing (and I am old). It gets everybody's attention.