From "The Way to the Top"

This quote is an excerpt from Donald Trumps book, "The Way To The Top" is from a top GE executive who managed some $180 billion when asked as to who was his strongest and most influential investor in his life.

"...But probably the most influential investor I've known — certainly the most eccentric — is a guy whose advice and counsel I seek out every day. His name is Bernie Feshbach, and to me he's been the lost and found of Wall Street. Bernie was a World War II Purple Heart award winner selling used cars, selling women's dresses, and working as a stockbroker. He's very well traveled and very well known throughout financial circles; he always wears his bow tie and his designer suits; and he knows all the maitre d's and concierges at the best restaurants and hotels all over the world. But more important, he knows where all the hidden closets are on Wall Street and where all the bodies are buried.

Bernie's about to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of his fortieth birthday later on this year and as such has experienced more market cycles than anyone I know. Every deal I ever did with him or recommended by him was a success. But Bernie's real value to me can't be measured by the deals we did or didn't do. It's my having the ability to pick his brain. Bernie's never been shy in voicing his opinions to me or of me, and his thoughts are incredibly valuable. Everyone needs a truly independent sounding board, preferably one that knows what he's talking about and without a personal stake in the outcome. Every business leader needs to find a Bernie Feshbach..." who was wounded at Okinawa. He grew up in the Bronx and after the war tried his hand at pig-farming, oil wild-catting,

Living on the Edge...of Money

If I knew that I was going to live this long I would probably have taken better care of my money. Ah where did the many, many millions I earned go? 'Cause I don't have even a small itty, bitty, little bit of it left. Profligate spending? No respect for accumulating money? Always spent at least a little more than I made? Guilty as charged of all of the above and more.

Did I enjoy being constantly overdrawn at the bank? I must have because I was constantly overdrawn. Me and keeping a record of the checks written while keeping a record of my bank balance weren't even kissin' cousins. I was totally arrogant about my ability to make money and my arrogance was well founded. A banker once asked me what I was going to do with the money I wanted to borrow. "Spend it" I said. He thought that I was being a smart ass, and he turned me down. But how did I make many millions of dollars disappear? No problem for this old, lower case jew.

While I did spend mucho bucks on myself, the bulk of the money was spent on others. My wives before and after divorces (a half of a half doesn't leave a whole hell of a lot). My four kids and the Ice Princess plus my second ex wife were my prime targets. The Ice Princess complained, sometimes bitterly that I spoiled the kids. But my cry was that I was not "schizo" and that I couldn't give her (#1 ex wife) everything she wanted (and she wanted plenty starting with being a born again clothes horse) and not do the same for the kids. How she adored and loved I Magnin's. I loved every spending minute of it. I was pretty much consumed with love and affection for kids and yes, even for the Ice Princess and wife #2.

I also pissed away a ton of money on people I hardly knew or even cared to know. One of my kids had a tennis shop. God only knows how many warm up suits and tennis rackets I bought for flight attendants that I saw just once and didn't care to see again. I was trying to support the tennis shop and most flight attendants became brain dead while on that job, so I seldom pursued them. I was a real money sump pump and just loved it. The seventeen years between marriages were also terrific for spending money. Would I do it all over again? For sure!! My disrespect for accumulating money never included lack of recognition of what money was doing for my beloved family, good and casual friends and yeah even a few enemies.

Redundantly, I have lived a long and rich life and, thank God, always on the edge.

Being A Garmento 1953

One way for a marriage to stay in tact is for one or both of the spouses to travel a lot. It takes a lot longer for the couple to get bored with one another (aka sick of one another…and this is Noah talking about the flood). My first bout with getting out of the house for at least four or five days at a time was in peddling dresses on the road (aka travelin' man living). It was wonderful. The Princess didn't have to worry about having sex with me, and I didn't have to worry about pleasing her. I was, to turn a phrase, "pussy whipped". Also I couldn't figure out whether I was a lousy lover or that the Ice Princess didn't care about sex. Carries over to that old line that the best way to stop a married man from masturbating is to get him a divorce.

I had no dress selling competency. I got the job by convincing the bosses that I was a powerful salesman and that they should take a gamble on me. I spent three weeks working in the showroom (1440 Broadway) to learn. I had volunteered to work for nothing but the boss couldn't handle that so I received a small retainer.

My first territory was Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Eastern Kansas, Wisconsin, and Eastern Nebraska. A lot of two lane roads, 60-70 miles between towns. I could drive through a target town without realizing that I had gone through it. I then had to turn around and go back to the fucking town. When N.Y. sent me sample dresses, they would enclose a note describing the fabric. It was not until I covered N.Y. and Pennsylvania that I started making money and really loved the work. The joy of not having to be pussy whipped by the Princess was huge as well.

In the Midwest, you would get to some no name town with three dress shops. The owner of one would be out of town, the owner of the second wouldn't look at my line and the third would look but wouldn't buy. Very unpleasant. Every night in the hotel room, I would bang out thank you notes on a Royal Portable typewriter. "Sorry I missed you", "Sorry you wouldn't look at my line" and "Sorry that you didn't see anything you liked". The next time I hit that no name town, each of the owners greeted me with open arms (if they were there). I became a top salesman, but the biggest pay period I would have had turned to shit when the corduroy factory that produced the fabric for my hottest selling dress burned down.

The Ice Princess' father just plain didn't like his kid being married to a garmento travelin' man for sure. The fact is, he just didn't like me. Sadly it took me a very long time to realize that the dislike ran in the family including the Princess' sister. The Mother had died so I was relatively safe there.

No Thaw

After being married a relatively short period of time (11 years) and having, during that time, helped manage a tanning and dyeing plant (converting sheepskin into mouton lamb), being a "travelin man" (sold dresses on the road), farmed, I traveled for a wholesale automobile auction and was selling cars. I arrived home one night and announced to my then wife that I had taken a job as a stockbroker. She broke down in tears (she could cry a river just looking at me). That poor woman's life's dream was to have a quiet, table top smooth life, and I was giving her none of that.

Her idea of "living" was slow suicide for me. After moving from Mason City, Never Live There, Iowa, I was making a damn good living pushing new and used cars out the door. I was one of the top 3 West Coast Pontiac salesmen with yearly earnings of some $25,000 per year in 1957 dollars ($195,191 in today's money). And I was giving it up, with a wife, four kids and a dog (A Sheltie) for a starting draw (against commissions) of $1,200,1957 dollars a month. Why?

Well we lived next door to a very smart guy who was a Security Analyst with Fireman's Fund and was investing personal money. He kept telling stories about his big stock market successes, and I thought "Shit, I'll never make 'real money' peddling cars." So I went looking for a brokerage firm who would hire a car salesman who didn't know a stock from a bond.

And I found one that hired me. I promptly went on a self education binge and developed into one of the top broker/salesman/security analysts in the US and made more money than I deserved. But even that didn't help the Ice Princess 's attitude towards me. She had developed an ingrained dislike of me. Being slow (but not stupid) it took me some 30 years to recognize her dislike. But I refused to accept it and continued to try to get her approval until she passed away.

She, while dieing in the hospital, gave my kids instructions for me, not to phone, come by or send flowers. And when she left this world for the next, I was not to be allowed to her memorial service. Wow…I just never ever made it with the Princess.

It's Never Too Late

"It's never too late, or in my case

too early to be whoever you want to be.

There's no time limit.

Start whenever you want.

You can change or stay the same.

There are no rules to this thing.

We can make the best or the worst of it.

I hope you make the best of it.

I hope you see things that startle you.

I hope you feel things you never felt before.

I hope you meet people

who have a different point of view.

I hope you live a life you're proud of,

and if you're not,

I hope you have the courage

to start all over again."

Eric Roth, From the Screenplay of

"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"

Dead Dick

To paraphrase Willie Nelson, it is very sad for me that my "dick" died before the rest of me. The other day in a family restaurant a young woman offered me a lap dance. "Lap Dance"? I asked "Are you crazy? It would take one hell of lot more than a lap dance to bring my dead "dick" back to life". I did suggest that a "bj" might do it, but the "bj" wasn't acceptable.

But there were times in my first single life and at the very tail end of my first, long drawn out marriage when "it" was very active if not always strong. Stumbling across two street women from Mosambique in Paris and ending up in bed with them at the Muerice made for a fabulous menage a trois. Too bad I was so drunk that I can't remember why it was so fabulous.

And a hooker in Denver so unbelievable that when I woke up few hundred dollars lighter, I couldn't remember what happened to my money. Every drunk in the world thinks while totally "in the bag" that he is the last of the great Latin lovers. But it wasn't all wild and crazy when I was drinking. In AA (where I owe 35 years extra of life and where I learned a ton) the standard line is "the worst day sober is better than the best day while drinking." I don't subscribe to that notion. I had some great times while in the bag.

We had an apartment in S.F., and I spent many evenings at the North Beach restaurant eating, drinking and laughing and doing bizarre things. My many trips to N.Y getting loaded and laughing all the way with the flight attendants were fun, full of accomplishments and a great way to get away from the Ice Princess. Going to Israel seven times in 13 months in a failed attempt to organize a fund to raise money to drill for oil in Israel was ludicrous. Everyone knows that Moses made a mistake and turned left instead of right so the Arabs have the oil. I am sure that I took a few of those trips just to get the hell out of the house.

Being married to the Ice Princess wasn't like spending a day at the beach. Drinking, laughing, coming, going and doing was much more fun. Who sober would invite the entire crew of a National Airline flight to dinner at the North Beach restaurant after a flight from New Orleans. Bizarre? For sure. Fun? Absolutely!!! Laughed all the way to a huge check. Regrets? None!!!!

Sleepless Christmas Eve 2008

So here is Christmas Eve and guard duty at Fort Lewis Christmas Eve 1944 comes to mind. I had volunteered for guard duty so that a Christian GI could go to church. And as I walked the perimeter of Ft. Lewis, I could see the houses on the other side of the fence across the road, all decked out with Christmas decorations. I can still see it in my mind's eye including the people in the houses celebrating Christmas. And I remember, vividly, that overwhelming feeling of loneliness as tears streamed from my eyes. So Christmas Eve these past 64 years has always been special to this Old Jew. And I feel blessed that God put me in the army, gave me the opportunity to serve my country and still allows my tears to stream, 64 years later after a rich and fruitful life.

After being hit on Okinawa, April 12, 1945 the Army shipped my ass to the ambulatory hospital on Saipan which was not a "cool" place to be. And I'm not talking about the weather. When everyone around you is a war casualty, it's hard to elicit any sympathy because I could barely walk up that fucking hill to the mess hall. Where else would the army put the mess hall except in the most inconvenient, pain inducing location? There were Japanese soldiers with ammo still left in the hills who didn't know or care that the U.S. had taken the island. Almost every day machine gun fire would erupt from those hills, and we'd all scramble like crazy for some kind, any kind of cover. Once hit, twice shy.

When that bullet went through my leg on Okinawa, I realized for the first time that I was not omnipotent. I had lost my cherry on Okinawa. Bullet wounds do hurt and really can kill. As one did to Sgt Boggs. What really pissed everyone off was that machine gun fire coming down from the hills would come when we were in the Coke line. You absolutely lost your place in the line when scrambling. Not being too mobile meant that I was always ended up at the end of the God damn newly formed line. While on Saipan, I would go on sick call almost daily and complain about my difficulty in navigating the walk up to the fucking mess hall hill three times a day with constant discomfort (aka pain). And for awful food to boot! Those ass hole, newly minted lieutenants in their crispy, clean stateside fresh uniforms would tell me that there was nothing wrong with my leg, and that I was just bucking for a discharge. I also was accused of trying for a Section 8 discharge for mental disorder because of my bizarre behavior concerning my leg and otherwise.

A starchy clean, schmuck of a newly arrived doctor really got annoyed with me and shouted, "Do you want me to hold your leg?" To which I replied "Yeah, for as long as it would help" where upon he went off the fucking wall and threatened to have me court martialed. He did, however, send me to another doctor, a pediatrician in civilian life. He took the time and trouble to really examine my x-rays and discovered that all the bones in my knee were shattered from the impact of the bullet going through the flesh and bone of my leg. However knowing what was wrong with me didn't make mess hall hill any less steeper or shorter. And my Jewish ass really missed those ass hole Boston Irish from my outfit, so I started making noise to leave Saipan and rejoin my outfit on that other Garden Spot, Okinawa. Back I went to rejoin my anti Semitic (and who cared) buddies again.