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.

~

WWII and A Diuretic

"Regrets, I have a few, too few to mention.", My Way, Frank Sinatra...

While watching a WWII film the other evening, the duffel bags we all carried, when transferred, were prominent. We were all so proud and felt so macho carrying them on our shoulder. We all felt special, particularly when the civilians stared at us.

Carrying all I owned in one bag did seem a little weird.

Before getting on board the troop transport we had to empty out our duffel bags for inspection. No booze on board permitted. I had a couple of loaves of bread.Passed inspection with the Sgt. not realizing that my Pop had hollowed them out and each loaf had a bottle of Haig and Haig Pinch scotch bottles.

Hoarded the booze until our unit was transferred to a landing craft for the 'fun trip' from the Philippines to Okinawa. Sleeping on the hard fucking deck had little appeal for me so I traded the 2 bottles of booze with an officer for 3 cots, for me and two buddies. The other GI's hated us for our 'comfort'. The officer got loaded.

Some pundit on TV the other day said that, 'life is short', a very trite old line. At 91 that line is, for me, a fucking bullshit line. Life seems particularly long in the early morning, having had, generally a lousy night of fitful sleep with fears of impending doom generating bad dreams plus needing to hit the head every few hours.

The risk to reward ratio of not getting my ass out of bed at 12:00, 2:00 and 4:00 AM and stumbling to the john was clear. Get my ass out of bed or piss in the bed. A no-brainer choice.

I do enjoy having the insane fantasy from time to time that my schlong could get as stiff as the rest of me, instead of it being a God damn dripping faucet fueled by a diuretic.

Knowing how to drive in the 1940's was not common and it made a half-assed big shot out of me. I could drive from our camp up the hill to our observation post. Being a $50 a month chauffeur/radio operator was wonderful. Suited me fine. Loved driving the Jeep up the hill.

Observation post? Yeah we had an installation overlooking Crescent Beach and the Straits of Juan de Fuqua where we were supposed to watch out for strange ships, aka Japanese, entering U.S.waters.

Sounds like a joke now but it was serious business in 1943. Puffed us out with self importance.We were protectors of the US coast line.

My time was spent in the observation post looking out the fucking window, learning Russian (not well), improving my skills as a typist/radio operator, pissing off Lt.Hamil and fantasizing about living out my wet dreams.

"Regrets I have a few, too few to mention.", My Way, Frank Sinatra

~

Risk Everything, Regret Nothing.

Moderation is fatal (and plenty fucking boring).

"Feshbach, you've done such a great job as a radio operator that I'm going to put you in for PFC.", said Lt. Hamlin in 1944 at Camp Hayden,Washington.

"Give the fucking $4 a month to someone who needs it. Being the ranking Private in the barracks makes me special so I'll pass." That exchange greased the way for me being transferred, very quickly, at my request to an outfit scheduled to go overseas, aka combat.

AA reinforced my dislike of 'people pleasers'. A fate not for me. Gotta have, for balance, people in my life, who like me and people who dislike me.Without a filter between my head and my mouth it was a certainty that a lot of people that I would meet would dislike me.

Being overdrawn, after going sober, at the bank, almost $900,000, in 1980 dollars, made living and sleeping with the fear of impending doom a big part of my life. I was driven, insanely, to supporting my divorced (thank God) ex-wife, my kids, a few friends and my own fucking big time spending which included just giving money away. Never could handle having someone else pick up the lunch or dinner check. Masochism at its finest.

But I always believed in my earning power and my Pop's mantra that, "In America the money is up to your knees. You just have to know how to bend down and pick it up." A life time of going up like a rocket and down like a stick was my schtick.

Israel was my creme de la creme of immoderate living until it wasn't. Deciding to raise money to drill for oil in Israel really sealed my fate with the Princess.We had a great swap going. The Princess thought that I was bizarre, I thought she had a real boring streak in her.

The problems that the Princess had with my Israeli efforts started with my virtually giving up all of my income to concentrate on connecting with the Israeli bureaucracy and super Jews who thought that I was stupid.

Finally, I waved the flag of surrender. $500,000 give or take poorer and with the undying resentment of the Princess except when I took her along on one of my many trips to Israel.

Then there were Donn and Daisy Tognazziny. Having written a tome about Walt Disney the thought came to me to promote the stock in Europe. Donn was based in Zurich, worked for the same bucket shop as I did and we struck a deal for him to help me peddle the Disney stock in Europe. This kind of coincided with my Israeli efforts so I invited Donn and Daisy to join me in Jerusalem all at my expense. Very dumb.

The Princess was right in labeling me as 'bizarre', but now at 91, busted on my ass, I have no regrets and am without Italian Alzheimer's where you forget everything except the grudge.

And again, as the Italians say, 'If you can't stand ingratitude, never do anything for anybody.'

~

A Veteran's Day Reverie: Bullets, bullets everywhere...and not a drop to drink.

Where were you when.....?

In the thirties we had Poppy Days in the whole United States, including the Bronx, with American Legion WWI Veterans standing on street corners selling poppies celebrating Decoration Day and Armistice Day.

Armistice Day was was really special.11:00 AM on the 11th day of November commemorated the signing of the World War I Armistice.

The whole of the United States came to a dead fucking halt at exactly at 11:00am. Grade schools, high schools, people at work, Mommies screaming at kids, everything came to a dead stop. Cars stopped moving, clerks quit selling, teachers quit talking. It seemed as though the whole world quit breathing for 2 minutes.

Decoration Day was originally a commemoration day for the Civil War dead of both sides. It morphed into Memorial Day which commemorates all US war dead. (Naturally, it was switched to a Monday to give everyone a three day weekend.)

Armistice Day morphed into Veterans Day to celebrate veterans of all US wars. The greatest beneficiaries of both holidays are the retailers, resort owners and asshole politicians who use both days as excuses to run off at the mouth. Except they do have great old war movies on TV.

'Those were the days my friend.We thought they'd never end.'...Fiddler On The Roof..

The Brits still celebrate their Remembrance Day with Poppies Galore. Men and women both wear them.

Standing on the Coke line while in the hospital on Saipan: The Japanese soldiers left in the hills hadn't read the Marine Corp's press releases and didn't know that the U.S. had 'taken' the island. Almost every afternoon came wham, bam, slam! Out of the fucking hills flew the bullets.We learned that the term 'gun fire' was for the movies and 'bullets' were for the real war world.

The guys in line scattered like whores in a whore house being raided by the police.We went for the ditches.Why we thought that diving into open ditches was safer than just standing in line just beats the shit out of me.We just felt like we had to move.

The most bothersome thing about those flying bullets was that when you have been hit once you know that you're not omnipotent and sometimes it's you in the line of fire and not just the other poor son of a bitch. You had always believed getting hit was for someone else.

But the most annoying result of the bullets from the hills was losing my place in the Coke line. Me and my gimpy leg were slow to stagger back and I always ended up at the end of the fucking line.

Officers didn't know from standing on line for a coke or a God damn O'Henry bar.We played poker for slices of the O'Henry bars. Shooting craps in the latrine of the hospital for real money was for post WWII Korea and on the deck of the hospital ship.

Bernie Feshbach & Buddy Goldfarb - Tinian 1945

But then, what the hell were you going to do to kill time in a hospital for the ambulatory, on a fucking island in the middle of nowhere, that you had never heard of. Swimming never seemed to be an option though we did go swimming when on Okinawa after the war ended. Saipan is now a resort destination for the Chinese. Who'da thought?

And why Coke and not Pepsi or O'Henry and not Baby Ruth? We were sure that some assholes behind desks in the states were getting paid off. Turns out we were mostly right.Graft for government contracts during WWII was very real.

My Pop, during the war, volunteered to manufacture, at no profit, the sheepskin vests used by the Air Force and some asshole government contract officer wanted a payoff. Patriot for a price.

'Drop your c...s and grab your socks.' was the sergeant's screaming wake up call in the States. On Okinawa, Saipan, Tinian, etc., sleeping was edgy and playing with yourself was not so important.

~

Time Flies When You're Having Fun

Ah, the thrill of it all when you're around 13 years old in 1936 and living in the Bronx, the Capitol Of The Universe. You inveigle 50 cents from your Mom, take the Gun Hill Road bus to the Jerome Ave. elevated to get to 34th St.

Spend 20 cents on a Nedick's hot dog and orange drink then on to the real goal: the sporting goods section on the 5th floor of R. H. Macy.

Swinging the baseball bats, trying on real leather baseball gloves and fingering the leather footballs. All, over the top wonderful. No money to buy anything, but imagination ruled while fantasizing that I was Carl Hubbell, Babe Ruth, Sid Luckman and Sammy Baugh. Never fussed with the tennis or ski stuff. Those sports were for rich people not Bronx street Jews.

Finish the downtown visit off with another hot dog and orange drink or a chicken pot pie at the Automat.Then back home, happy as a pig in shit or a clam in mud.

Suddenly, 34 years whipped on by while I accumulated a wife, four kids and a dog plus a Jewish mansion in Portola Valley with a mortgage. Acquired, along the way, a reputation in the investment world as a successful stock broker and oil and gas guru and damned proud of it. Jewish mansion? More house than I should have signed up for.

Get in the bag SAP flying first class to NY from SF. Need the booze to keep me elevated. Lay over in N.Y., stay at the Sherry Netherland Hotel, keep on keeping on with the booze, pick up a hooker, pass out, no sex, get rolled.

Felt really awful but didn't miss a beat. All alcoholics have one thing in common: feeling like shit a lot of the time, with suicidal thoughts. But God blessed me by allowing me to be a 'functioning alcoholic' which meant that I only fucked up from time to time, not all the time so I thought that I was okay.

Go to Israel the next night, not feeling too swift or too fucking smart (aka really stupid). Flew El Al, First Class, sat next to the head of Mossad. Not much conversation. Pretty anxious to have 'a little of the hair of the dog that bit me'.

Drinks served in very small glasses. Being a high velocity drinker I asked for my third scotch over ice within 10 minutes of taking off, the flight attendant looked at me like I was a bull with a bastard calf and asked with that Israeli intonation, "Another one?" (emphasis on "another") just like home, with another Jewish broad making me feel guilty about drinking but not guilty enough to stop.

As we approach the airport in Israel, the back end of the plane exploded with people singing Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem giving me goose pimples. As with lots of Jews, I had the feeling of  'coming home' although, at that time, there were more Jews living in NY than lived in Israel.

This was only a few short years after the '67 war and not too many years after Israel's War of Independence and Zionism was really flourishing. And I was/am a Zionist. Hitler convinced me that Jews had to have a country of their own, a country of last resort.

Checked into the King David Hotel and had a small suite overlooking the Old City. Loved hearing the calls to prayer for the Arabs.There were two young American women (kids) in the lobby lounge who were in tears.They were out of cash and couldn't cash a stateside check from a Mom. The Israeli's had cashed too many rubber checks for American Jewish tourists. So with boozy feelings of warmth I cashed it. The check was good. The Mom later wrote me a note of thanks.

In the beginning of my ridiculous and futile effort to raise a fund to drill for onshore oil and gas in Israel, I went through several months of trying to connect with someone in the Israeli bureaucracy with zero success. Very fucking annoying trying to help someone who wouldn't even return a phone call.

So one night, while a little little bit in the bag, I phoned Golda Meir, the Israeli Prime Minister, spoke with someone in her office who put me in touch with Zvi Dinstein, the Israeli Energy Minister who naturally turned me over to someone else.Wading through Israeli bureaucracy was not like spending a day at the beach.

Trying to raise money to drill for oil in Israel was a great ride for me with no regrets. I grew to love Israel and its over the top rude people. I have always contended that if you combine the rudeness of a New Yorker with the rudeness of a Parisian, you have an Israeli. But I loved them for what they were and are: a relentlessly creative and imaginative people and culture, rudeness and all.

Being a slow learner it took me 13 months of traveling all over the U.S., calling on rich Jews and commuting to Israel,to realize that I was pissing into the wind.The rich Jews would consider technology investments but wildcat drilling was off their radar screens.

Mr.Gruss (Joe) said it all when he said that charitable giving to Israel worked for him, shooting money down dry holes was not for him. Mr. Gruss was already a very successful oil and gas operator in West Texas.

Lesson learned? Moses should have turned right instead of left and the Jews would have all the oil instead of the Arabs.

~