The Great Social Divide, Tennis, The Mayer Bros.

Gene & Sandy Mayer at Roland-Garros 1979

'You still can't hit a forehand even after all the lessons Genie gave you.'

The late 60's and 70's saw an unprecedented tennis boom. When I was a kid in the Bronx we thought that those guys dressed in white had to be 'different'. We didn't have a clue if that was good or bad but grown men, being dressed entirely in white, seemed weird to a Bronx Jew. (Or Bronx anything.)

Tennis in the 30's was a WASP domain. Irish Catholics aka 'micks',Jews and 'blacks' were unacceptable to those fucking hoity-toity WASPS though a Catholic or two may have snuck in. Blacks with their color and Jews with their circumcisions were easily identified in a locker room.

Tennis was strictly a country club, snob affair. Yeah, the blacks and Jews made their names in the boxing and the entertainment worlds, though every once in a while a Jew would sneak into major league baseball. Blacks in tennis or baseball?

Never. Micks? Quite a few in baseball, not so much in tennis. Italians were huge in both boxing and baseball but I don't recall any in tennis.

Read Bud Schulberg's 'Sparring With Hemingway' for a real sense of the great social, living divides of the 30's,some which, sadly, still persist today but mostly 'under the covers'.

In the 50's with four boys and great weather, living in Palo Alto, my lifelong interest in athletics came back to life particularly after four years in ugly weather Iowa. We became founding members of the Alpine Hills Tennis and Swim Club in Portola Valley where they didn't care about my circumcision. Actually, here in the Land of Milk and Honey and Fruits and Nuts the bigotry level was/is so low as to be virtually nonexistent.

The boys did swim in few meets. Those swim meets were, for me, a huge pain in the ass with the waiting for an hour or so to watch my kids swim for very few minutes. And they didn't, for sure, star at swimming.

So I got very involved in junior tennis and in turn started playing as well. When the Princess threw me out and I moved into Oak Creek I became part of the tennis playing crowd. Some of the Stanford tennis team lived here with me knowing one or two of those guys from the 'old days' when they were juniors.

The Mayer brothers, Sandy and Genie, lived here and what a pair they were to draw to. Both were ranked players, both arrogant though Sandy kept his arrogance mostly under control. Genie was another case. He was on a free ride at Stanford to play tennis but only played matches he felt sure that he could win. This was on the advice of his Father, as told to me by his Father. Genie's ranking was the big concern. The higher the rank, the higher under the table cash payoffs to the so called amateur player. Money, money, money !!!!

Genie shared an apartment with one of my kids, Kurt, here at Oak Creek. I fed them both dinner 3-4 days a week with Genie's appetite being absolutely voracious. He never gained weight and we all believed that he had a worm in him. Two major league strip sirloins was kid's play for Gene. When we went out to Stickney's for dinner, Gene would order cream soup and a bunch of butter patties to put in the soup. It was absolutely disgusting to watch.

His Father, Alex, an internationally renowned teaching pro, was staying with me and came to watch me, one morning, hit tennis balls with Rick Fisher. After a few minutes Alex said to me, 'You still can't hit a forehand, even after all the lessons Genie gave you.' I went nuts. Genie, that little shit, had told his Dad that I was feeding him in exchange for lessons. Not even close to being the truth. I fed him because he was living with my kid.

My last experience with the self perceived big shot, Gene Mayer (He later was ranked in the top 10 as was Sandy.) was when he needed a place to stay while looking for an apartment at the beginning of his senior year. None of his team mates would have him. I was going to London for a week and like a fucking dummy I said okay on the conditions that he wouldn't run me out of Perrier water and would keep my place reasonably neat.

Naturally when I got back home Gene disappeared. My place looked like a fucking tornado hit it. That schmuck hadn't washed a dish, had used every pot and pan and ran me out of Perrier water. He was afraid that I'd split his fucking head open if I got close to him again.

Not a thank you, drop dead or suck eggs from that jerk. Never saw him during his final year at Stanford. I bumped into him on a flight to NY. He was getting double servings of everything. The flight attendants could hardly believe the spectacle. His mouth just never stopped moving.

Sandy couldn't hold a candle to Gene when it came to arrogance. My only two negative experiences with Sandy were when he borrowed my Mercedes Convertible (before I totaled it) to take his future wife to Tahoe for the weekend. His exchange was to be 10 lessons. I got one. The other time was many years later, when he told me that he wouldn't give me lessons because I was too old and he saw no future in it. He now hits with the guy who runs Oracle. I guess Sandy had good judgment, if distasteful.

College and pro tennis players, in the sixties and seventies at least, were mostly a narcissistic bunch of assholes. Over the top cheap, deserving the best because they showed up, not because they earned it. My experiences with Pancho Segura, Barry McKay, Mike Davies and Butch Bucholtz are grist for another time.

Georgia Silver, Oak Creek Apartments

'Do me a favor Georgia and stick your head up your ass and spin like a merry-go-round.'

Georgia Silver was a psychologist who needed a shrink herself or maybe just some active sex. Georgia would show up at the tennis courts perfectly turned out. She looked as though she was going to lunch or tea with the ladies at the country club. But no matter how hard she tried to make herself look good the fucking pain in the ass in her always shone through.

The Oak Creek Apartments in Palo Alto where I lived, then and now, should have been called, Splitsville City. About 80% of the residents had been recently divorced, separated or living in sin.

One drive we all had in common was to resurrect our sex lives. Having read where water beds were a great help I bought one. Pure bullshit. All that happened was that the constantly gurgling water made me want to piss.

There was a tennis playing community within this 750 apartment complex. Great place for me when the Princess threw me out. Available sex with California style, active living.

Thankfully, Georgia counted me as one if her most disliked people. Since I wouldn't play mixed doubles or as my son Joe called them,'mixed troubles’, with her I incurred Georgia's undying hate. The icing on the cake came when, for the second time, I turned her invitation down to play doubles with her by telling Ole Sweet Pea that 'Varicose Veins tennis wasn't my thing.'

Oak Creek had, at that time, an insane rule where, on the weekend, two people could only use a court for 30 minutes. I was hitting tennis balls with a good friend of mine Rick Fisher, who had been Co-captain of the Stanford tennis team. Rick was on the tennis pro circuit at the time and was being kind to me. He was way, way out of my 20 handicap golf equivalent tennis. We certainly didn't play a match, we just hit balls.

Rick and I had about 5 minutes of our 30 minutes left when Georgia showed up at the back of the court and growled/shouted 'Your time is up.' I looked at my watch, saw that we had 5 minutes left and said 'Georgia we have five minutes left. Do me a favor Georgia and stick your head up your ass and spin like a merry-go round'. Rick and I played out our five minutes.

Then one day up stomps Georgia who had been married to a shrink named Bernie who I knew from my married days when the Princess and I would go to dinner with him and Georgia. Bernie Silver had left neat, perfectly turned out Georgia, for a 29 year old attractive woman but no trophy wife. (Bernie was around 50) .The new wife dressed the opposite of Georgia. She was kinda sloppy and wore jeans. Georgia while stomping towards me screamed 'Do you know what that son-of-a-bitch Bernie did to me? He died on me.' She screamed (like a banshee).

She believed that poor Bernie died to do her out of the alimony she was collecting. What a bitch. The last I heard she was a practicing psychologist specializing in marital relationships.

And the water bed? I gave it away! I contracted ED the one time I tried sex on it. Rolling around on a gurgling stream didn't work for me.

Sammy Glick aka Leo Hindery, Geraldine Fabrikant, Jessica Reiff Cohen

'Autodesk is going to pay $28 a share for Global Crossing.' Sammy Glick aka Leo Hindery, told me. Totally fucking amazing since Global Crossing was selling for $8 a share.

Sammy, aka Leo, was the CEO of Global Crossing at the time and was trying to jack up the price of the stock. Making the company successful was secondary to Sammy's stock options.

The company did go into the fucking tank. Never got back to $10.

Inside information considerations were of no moment to Sammy, aka Leo. He was calling all his 'friends' and 'enemies' alike and giving us this juicy piece of inside mis-information except we all knew by then that Leo was doing a con and was totally and absolutely full of shit. Too fucking good to be true.

Sammy Glick was the subject of a 1941 best seller, 'What Makes Sammy Run' by Bud Schulberg. Sammy rose to the top of the ladder by confiscating the writings and ideas of others and then 'selling' them as his own. Sammy was a master at pure bullshit as well and getting people to believe him was his huge talent. Sammy was a great con artist.

Geraldine Fabrikant, wrote a terrific piece for the New York Times in June of 1998, featuring Sammy aka Leo. Among other things, Ms. Fabrikant, pointed out that Leo's description of his life growing up, was quite a bit different from his real life as described by his mother and brother. Leo has always strived mightily to give almost mythical qualities to his life, however phony.

But my all time favorite Leo Hindery, jr story, and I have a bunch of them, begins at a dinner that I hosted at Cipriani's in NYC. Leo, at the time was President of Telecommunications Inc, a major cable network. It was public knowledge that ATT was negotiating to buy TCI.

At the dinner in addition to Leo and me, was Jessica Reiff-Cohen, a highly regarded media analyst with Merrill Lynch, her husband Bob, Ed Spiegel, a Goldman Sachs partner and Deanne, Ed's wife.

It is important to note that the dinner was on a Wednesday night. Jessica went to the ladies' and in the course of the conversation Sammy, aka Leo, told us that on Friday ATT was going to announce the acquisition of TCI and the price, which was significantly higher than Wednesday's closing price. Even I was at a loss for words. Leo was at his people pleasing best even if illegal.

When Jessica came back from the ladies' I said, 'You'll never believe what Leo just told us about the ATT/TCI deal.' Jessica, to her credit, said 'Don't tell me. I don't want to know.' Leo, as with Sammy, was a real people pleaser and as with Sammy, Leo had few boundaries. 

Leo is 'totally powerless over his own bullshit'. Total bullshit becomes an absolute truth the minute it comes out if his mouth. His real ambition is to have a high position in a public office but I can't believe that his 'background' could survive the intense due diligence required.

Leo is well learned in that old West Texas adage, 'If you can't dazzle 'em with your footwork then blind 'em with your bullshit.'

Booze, Money, Parenting

'Are you crazy? That was one of the most God damn bizarre, totally fucking insane things I've ever seen. You need to be institutionalized.'

One afternoon ole Joanie phoned me and asked me to come by. This was before I realized that Joan was still drinking and using. (I'm a slow, but not stupid learner). The sporadically paid house keeper let me in and told me that Joan was in the bedroom.

Just as in a Vegas hotel suite, there was a small, Japanese style, circular copper bath tub adjoining the bedroom. (No, this 'hotel room' didn't have a mirrored ceiling over the bed.) Joan was in the tub as naked as a new born kid, lecturing her daughter, the oldest, and her two teen age boys.

It takes a really fucked up woman, small tits and all, to lecture two teen age boys while being naked, in a bath tub. I went off the wall, after the kids were gone, and went on a screamer starting with, 'Are you crazy?' Dumb question since the answer was apparent. Between the booze and the pills, Joan was really looney.

In walking to see the naked Joan in the tub, I had to walk by her enormous bed. There were 3 very expensive Boggier ski suits and two Bogner après ski outfits laid out on the bed. Since Joan didn't ski, I wondered what the hell that goofy broad was going to do with $6,500 (1975 $) worth of ski clothing. After the kids left and I was finished ranting about a mother lecturing two teen aged boys while naked, I said to Joan 'You don't ski. Why the ski outfits?'

Miss Fashion Plate says, 'I'm going to Tahoe next week and I have to look like a skier.' Her dead husband's very wealthy family owned a place in Tahoe that Joan used from time to time, every winter. At least she didn't buy a set of skis to further impress everyone.

Joan, it turned out, never went clothing shopping. She had a sales person at I Magnin, a very upscale store, who would bring her, periodically, clothes from the store to choose from. To call her well dressed would be an understatement. To call her a profligate spender would be kind. She suffered from a serious disrespect of money.

She was also a hat freak. Joan was small but always wore, huge, great looking, broad brimmed hats. Kinda' looked like they would enable her to fly. In addition to being a hat fashion freak, Joan was also a hot check writer of great consequence. Joan never opened her mail. As with other serious drinkers and users, Joan was afraid of what message was in the mail.

After the Princess unloaded me and I moved into this overpriced Palo Alto dump, I would walk past my mail box for days afraid to open the fucking mail box. My constant feelings of impending doom kept me from even taking the mail out of the mail box, much less opening it. But obviously I did, later rather than sooner.

Joan had a 'keeper' hired by her wealthy relatives to try to keep Joan and her free spending, hot check writing reined in. No hope. So every year end the family would send the 'keeper' a bunch of money to settle up Joanie's hot checks and insane charge accounts. They didn't want their world famous name besmirched.

In those days I was driving a real piece of shit Pinto. I was busted on my lower case bronx, jewish, ass and the car was loaned to me by a car dealer friend with a promise from me that he would be paid a rental fee when I could.(Which I did: $2,000 for 18 months, in 1975 dollars.) Joan felt demeaned being in the Pinto and I felt the same way. I was too macho to drive her car. That fucking Pinto was one hell of a comedown from the Mercedes that I had just totaled.

Fell asleep driving at night on the then new 280. I had spent a day in S.F. with my friend Patti Brown getting my 'colors' done. I think that I'm a 'fall'; no one ever called me 'Sunshine'!

We had dinner at Lorenzo Petroni's North Beach Restaurant. I drank a ton of coffee which didn't keep me awake when needed. On the way back home, on 280, Patti asked if I would mind her taking a nap, which I didn't, not realizing that a few minutes later I would join her.

Wham, Bam, Slam. I came awake, saw that we were hurtling off the road, going a gazillion miles a fucking hour. Having spent four years driving on icy roads in fucked up Iowa, I knew better than fight the steering wheel. We took down some saplings, newly planted trees, ripped a chain link fence up out of the ground, bounced off a horrendous oak tree and finally came to a halt. All of this action while in a Mercedes convertible with its soft top. (The car was totaled; its fate is another cockamamie story.) Miraculously, Patti and I escaped with a few scratches. We did kinda go into shock the following day.

After I had said 'goodbye, good luck, so long' to that sad soul Joan, I kept hearing from Joan's friends about her increasingly bizarre behavior. I decided to go back East and talk with her dead husband's brother and father and see if I could convince them to change their approach. So like a jerk I schlepped my busted ass back East, naturally flying first class, always feeling better to 'go' in flames, rather than sparks.

The following morning I was picked up by a car and driver and driven to a suburb for breakfast with Joan's brother in law at his home. He had just come off his tennis court, showered and was wearing a white terry cloth robe. He thought, I guessed, that he looked debonair. I thought he looked like shit and a real snob as well.

We had breakfast and he asked me lots of questions. The most irritating question came as he was questioning my motives in wanting to see him. I kept telling him my only motive was to try to save Joan's life. Then came the question out if this very bright, fabulously rich, asshole's mouth: 'What are you, some kind of a Christer?' My response was a simple 'Fuck you.'

He finally got dressed and we drove into town to where he and his Father, the Family Patriarch had offices. I told that old man that if they didn't change their method of dealing with Joan that she would surely die. That son of a bitch responded by literally saying, 'It can't happen soon enough for me.' That old prick shocked me into silence and he took off with stories if how Joan was the cause of his obese son's heart attack and death on a tennis court. Yeah, someone held his kid down while some one stuffed enormous quantities of food down his kid's gullet.

Yeah, unreal stories about Joan are many but these days my sympathies are with Joan and her inability to cope with life and resorting to pills and booze. Her husband's family name is now associated with family law suits (over money, naturally) and meaningful charitable and educational gifts. But when the time came for them to stand up and be counted they fell flat in their fucking, selfish, greedy faces. With friends like that Joan didn't need any enemies.

A Drinking Problem & Pill Problem..First Chapter

Naked as a jay bird, Joan screamed at me "Don't you dare hang up on me and then take the telephone off the hook."

Joan (not her real name) was somewhere between being a hard drinking genius, nympho and a fucking maniac. I met her in AA which, sadly, never worked for her. She was a spectacular dresser, wearing a hat all the time, and very, very bright (when sober and not 'doped up'). In addition to her drinking problem, it turned out, Joan had a pain killer problem. Her Mother was sick and on pain pills which Joan took and loved.

As with most people with a serious drinking problem her weapon of choice, when in the bag, was the telephone.

Joan lived in Atherton in one of the world's ugliest houses, unless you liked houses that looked like hotels, and Joan often voiced that opinion of her adobe hacienda. The family room had an old fashioned soda fountain and a pool table. The family room was as big, if not bigger, than my one bedroom apartment of some 800 square feet.

Joan's husband, when I was taking her out, was looking up at the grass. In Yiddish he was in 'Yenna veldt'. He had been grossly overweight and died while playing tennis. According to Joan he would come home, drink a few martinis while in their home sauna. He then would have dinner and eat everything that wasn't nailed down. He topped off the dinner with an ice cream sundae or ice cream soda that he made in his private soda fountain. All the goodies that he made had over the top quantities of ice cream and whipped cream. Hardly a wonder that he keeled over on a tennis court playing varicose veins doubles.

One time on a trip to the Big Apple I was staying, in act of penance, at the not lamented long gone, Downtown Athletic Club. It was convenient to Wall Street and my appointments. The rooms were just one step removed from being jail cell duplicates. The bars were missing but the rooms were stark.

The lone telephone operator was a tired old man. Joan got in the bag early California time that night but it was midnight in NY. She started calling repeatedly and driving that poor old man and me crazy. People with drinking problems tend to have a list, in their heads, of people to call when in the bag. So by two in the morning, NY time, Joan moved on to the next poor son of a bitch.

After getting back to the Land of Milk and Honey and Fruits and Nuts I avoided even calling Joan. After a few days she called at about 1:00 AM, drunk as a sailor on leave. I hung up on her but she wouldn't give up and kept calling back. So I took the phone off the hook. About 30 minutes later the front door bell starts insistently ringing and I buzzed her in. Up the elevator she came and I let her into my apartment. She was wearing a long hair lynx fur coat. She screamed at me 'Don't you dare hang up on me and then take the phone off the hook.' And off came the lynx coat with Joan just wearing her skin.

Joan's drinks of choice were Drambuie or Champagne, sometimes both in a night of spirited drinking. That night, she told me, it was a full bottle of Drambuie. I could puke at the thought of consuming a bottle of that shit.

Joan was all for spending that night with me but having sex with someone blind drunk was too disgusting for me. So after some 'discussion' she left, having put that insane lynx coat back on while leaving. Owning, much less wearing, a lynx coat in Atherton is like a Bedouin wearing a snow suit in the desert.

Naturally after she got home she started with those fucking phone calls again. The next day I called an attorney (One if the three most dangerous people in the world is a Jew with a lawyer). He talked me out of filing a harassment complaint against Joan and suggested a heart to heart talk with her.

A few days later not so sweet Joan and I met for lunch at a place in Palo Alto called Stickney's. After ordering lunch, we went through the usual 'amenities' which included a few strong Jewish American Princess (Joanie's genre) strong insults of me. After one of her fucking nasty insults, I leaned over the table and said "Joan, if you ever call me again, day or night, I'll slap that tight little ass of yours in jail.” Laid a $100 bill on the table for the lunch and tip and walked out. Never, thank God, ever heard from Joan again.

More to come on Joan's idiosyncrasies and acts of insanity. 'One man's nightingale is another man's owl' and Joan was not my nightingale. Sadly, she died a horrible death a year later in a style befitting someone dedicated to booze and pills. She, under the influence, jumped out of a tow truck and was run over by the wheels of her own car that was being towed to a repair shop in S.F.

The whole story for another time.

A Punishing Wife, George Soros, Stanley Druckenmiller, A Winner

'Wha'd I do?' The Princess would stop talking to me, sometimes for days at a time, and I didn't, often times know why. So, my plaintive question was, 'Wha'd I do?'

After a day or two or three of keeping me in the fucking deep freeze, the Princess often responded by saying, 'If you don't know what you did, what is the point in my telling you?' Just like being hung from a tree, left swinging in the fucking wind and not knowing why you're being hung.

But a day or two in the deep freeze, being punished for reasons that I knew, were as common as an old shoe. Silence was the Princess's weapon of choice. Sadly, she passed that piece of bullshit DNA onto the kids. More of a WASP perfected trait than one belonging to Jews, Irish Catholics and Italians. Don't know about Muslims and Buddhists.

What comes into our non WASP heads comes out of our non WASP mouths. Head to mouth without a filter serves a real purpose. It clears one's head of garbage. Prevents personal ulcers. However, constantly saying what you think contributes to giving others ulcers. No problem.


~And up pops George Soros with my letter to a friend:

 Dear Mike,

Many thanks for taking the time and trouble to share your political thoughts with me, plus your comment about the very smart and very, very greedy, chubby, George Soros.

Soros is, in my view, a stock market operator who is morally bankrupt. Many years ago Soros controlled a small, public company called Crystal Oil. Soros had a guy named Bill Goff running it. My experience with Goff was that he, Goff, was basically not trustworthy. He was a stock market front runner and dealt in inside information while EVP of Sabine Royalty, an oil and gas company out of Dallas.

Fortunately, thank God, Goff really, really, disliked me. To give your life balance you need people who like you and people who dislike you. People pleasers who want everyone to like them are very boring, innocuous to say the least. It took about 10 likes to offset Goff's virulent dislike of me. Gotta have balance in my life.

Ashley Priddy was the CEO of Sabine, a company that his Father started. Ashley was as straight as a die. Wouldn’t say 'shit' if he had a mouthful. To those who knew us, Ashley and I were indeed the odd couple.

Being a consultant to Sabine and a friend of Ashley, a wonderful human being, was a great privilege for this lower case bronx jew. When Ashley was hospitalized at the Stanford Hospital we often went to dinner at the Fish House in Palo Alto. We laughed like crazy through dinner. I sponsored, aka paid for, a surprise roast of Ashley with about 100 in attendance, in the Thanksgiving Tower about 9 months before Ashley, sadly, passed away from cancer.

After Ashley passed away the BOD of Sabine made Goff the CEO of Sabine. On a trip to NY/Wall Street, Goff bragged that he was going to leverage up debt free Sabine to prevent a hostile takeover so as to secure his job.

When I heard this I phoned Robert Priddy in Wichita Falls and on the board of Sabine and told him of Goff's insider trading of Sabine shares and of Goff's leveraging plans for Sabine. Robert Priddy was very proud of Sabine and not about to let Goff make Sabine his toy. Robert went berserk and a short while later Goff was gone from Sabine.

So, one night I'm out to dinner with my friend Stanley Druckenmiller telling him this sordid tale. Stanley, who was with Soros at the time, asked me, as a favor, to tell the story to Soros with emphasis on Goff's inside trading. So I did and Soros's reaction was, to quote Georgie Porgie, 'What's wrong with that?'

While in Soros's office his head trader rushed into the room, bragging about a hugely profitable trade in Texaco shares based, absolutely, on inside information which she got from her boyfriend who was big time at Solomon Bros.

BTW The famous Soros English pound trade was Stanley's idea though Soros did expand its size. Soros is in my view, a very, very smart, exceedingly rich, BUM, in caps. Today, he would be in jail. And after Soros saw the light, replaced Goff, Crystal Oil became a very profitable investment for Soros. 

Yeah, the Princess insisted on 'being her own person' and also fought mightily to make me 'her person' as well.

Soros proved that sometimes the difference between being right or wrong is that you're surely wrong when you get caught.

The Glory Of Being 90 Years Old...Told In A Brief Style

• When you're 90 years old, not only has your dick died, but your underwear is all you need for your urine and feces tests.

• Getting old is a 'lay up'. Being old ain't for wimps or sissies. Every kvetch chases you to Google and borderline hypochondria.

• Not needing a cane, a walker or a fucking motorized wheel chair is big.

• Not falling on my ass, for good or bad reasons is cause for celebration.

• Wanting to sing out 'Hallelujah' when a name comes to mind easy.

• Being 'regular' is big. Having to eat at least four prunes a day to get there is almost disgusting.

• Just being able to swing my leg high enough to get on a LeMond spinning bike feels like an accomplishment. Doing intervals even more so.

• Out of respect for other driver's lives never, ever, driving on a freeway is a must.

• Wondering if some homeless guy will get my $5,000 Brioni suits; where the fun was in the buying, not in the wearing.

• 70 year old memories of drinking boiler makers in Hawaii during a stop-over en route to the States. We were on a 6 hour pass from the hospital ship. Got really in the bag, literally fell flat on my face in a pool of water returning to the ship. We had planned to have steaks. Whiskey and beer chasers did, however, win the day.

• Ecstatic that the marbles in my head are still rolling around.

• Working with a great trainer twice a week. 30 minutes and 12 lb weights are my emotional and physical limits.

• Happy to be, to quote Billy Crystal, "A hoarder of memories".

• Knowing that percentages in all endeavors are the game. Gotta keep shoveling cause you know that under that pile of horse shit, there has to be a pony somewhere.

• Living by Bum Phillip's, a football coach's dictum, that 'You can fail all the time but you're never a failure, til you blame someone else".

• Optimism energizes. Pessimism drags you down.

• Knowing, to paraphrase Dean Martin, that when I get out of bed in the morning that it's as bad as I'm going to feel all day.

• Like any good Jew, I always forgive but never forget.

• Looking, sometimes staring, at knockout young women and wondering what possessed me to get married at 22. Not too fucking smart.

• Realizing that too much of my life has been severely influenced by letting my little head run my big one.

• Remembering getting picked up in Paris, drunk out of my fucking mind, by two hookers from Mozambique. Going back to the Meurice for a ménage a trois. Woke up, rolled, and not remembering anything about the ménage but sure that it was great.

• Finally remembering to put my keys, sunglasses and wallet in the same place has added real time to my life.

• Recalling the El Al flight attendant asking me, when I asked for my 4th drink in the first hour, on my way to Israel, "Another one?"

• Loving the line from Fiddler on the Roof, 'Those were the days my friend. We thought they'd never end.'

• Busted on my lower case bronx, jewish ass, but with zero regrets and optimism about the next 4.6 years.