Mr. Clean....Even If You Close Your Eyes You Don't Disappear

"Prediction is difficult, especially about the future." or "It ain't over until it's over.”, Yogi Berra wisdom.

Last week, my favorite, optimistic, and only cardiologist Dr.Nguyen made an appointment to see me in six months. At 91, rowing upstream, to make it, yet for another six months. Too bad that Dr.Nguyen's optimism can't bring my dead 'schlong' back to life.

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 drinking, hard living old fashioned wildcatters. Entrepreneurs to the end. Being around them, much less traveling with them was always serendipitous.

Mr. Clean (Tall guys are called Shorty.) as I called Tom Brown, was the ultimate hard living, hard driving, fucking obnoxious when drunk, human being. Every trip with him was always memorable. Something unexpected always happened.

One time he and Donny Evans came to London to speak at a one day oil and gas seminar that I had organized. Oil men Deane Stoltz, Joe Pevehouse, Ken Whiting plus a very smart Denver attorney, Bill Fishman were speakers. Drew a big crowd of institutional investors plus the usual ration of fucking flakes who wanted to have a free lunch at Claridge's.

The Bobbsy Twins were well on their way to becoming blind drunk while flying from Midland to Dallas to New York. Once aboard the Concorde for the trip to London, they settled in for some serious drinking until Mr. Clean got nasty and belligerent and the flight attendants cut him off. Donny was less drunk, which was easy done.

When they arrived at Claridge's, Brown started his London stay off by calling the London cabbie, loudly, a 'stupid son of a bitch'. The cabbie may have been stupid but at that moment Mr. Clean wasn't any smarter. By paying the cabbie the fare with an oversized tip I stopped him from beating the shit out of Mr. Clean.

It was a Sunday night and Claridge's Hotel lounge was as dead as a married man's sex life, or my sex life. Same, sad deal. Brown stormed into the lounge drunk wearing a crumbled, wet, corduroy suit literally screaming, 'Where are the women?'. He even embarrassed the other oil and gas geniuses who were kicking back with a drink or three.

Brown never recognized that alcohol and erections only worked when you're 20 years old. Only one of the many London sex clubs was open and Brown and Evans left the group and went to the club in the pissin' rain.

Tom Brown 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. Tom 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 Tom. What a fucking understatement!!!

Brown's wife at that time, Roz, was a classic. Great looking gal but one who had too many face lifts and had inhaled too much booze. Her face seemed frozen in time. Roz was a terrific drinking companion for Mr. Clean with an appetite for booze that seemed unquenchable. Roz was a walking example of the AA adage: one drink is too many and 100 isn't enough. Been there, done that.

One afternoon while we were on a stock promoting trip to LA, Roz was with us I was "assigned" to baby sit her in the United Airlines lounge while Mr. Clean was making a side trip to Santa Ana promoting the stock.

Before Roz and I left for the airport, Roz had had already inhaled her favorite 'get up and go' drink of half a glass of milk mixed with half a glass of Jack Daniel's Black Label. She was barely lucid while complaining about how terrible she felt all the way to LAX.

Once in the United Airline Lounge, Roz's taste was simple: chilled vodka no vermouth. Roz thought that her breath didn't smell by drinking vodka. She sipped the vodka through a sterling silver straw she had made by Tiffany.

Tom showed up shouting, "I'm thirsty". Roz had already put away at least five drinks before he arrived. He then inhaled three or four while Roz kept pace with him until our flight was called. On the 50 minute ride from L.A. to S.F. both Roz and Tom inhaled, I repeat, inhaled, at least four drinks each. They were high velocity drinkers.

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 hotel. It was both very boring and surprising that either one was still able to walk. Or hadn't killed one or another.

The next day Mr. Clean made a corporate presentation to about 150 suits at the North Beach Restaurant in San Francisco. But before the presentation Tom had at least two Bloody Marys, 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. The more Mr. Clean had to drink, the greater the company oil and gas reserves had grown. That day they grew by a factor of three or four without drilling a well.

After making the presentation, Tom stayed at the restaurant with two of my friends Peter Costigan and Bill Kneas. They ordered "six packs of stingers on the rocks”. Getting really bored I went back to the hotel.

When I returned to the hotel, Roz phoned my room and pleaded with me to go get Tom because she felt like shit and thought that she might be drawing her last breaths. So like a fucking idiot I did. Brown and my friends were blind, roaring drunk and all four of us went back to the hotel.

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

Sitting in the lounge drinking chilled vodka Roz suddenly jumped up, announced that she didn't feel good and was going back to the room. Brown, Peter and Bill never missed a beat. Repeating the same fucking stories over and over again and laughing like crazy with each repetition like it was the first time they heard the story. Very fucking boring.

There was a great looking gal 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 literally saved Tom’s life with the Heimlich maneuver after a snack at Trader Vic’s almost choked Mr. Clean into the next world.The hooker was a school teacher moonlighting as a hooker but only giving blow jobs. She was intelligent company and a great sex partner. Should have taken her home.

~

The Irresistible Patti Brown

Tuning 91 this week, God willing, and I still look like shit....'Everything changes, everything remains the same'.

So in my 50's along comes Patti Brown a once practicing Catholic but with her Irish still shining through her spiritual soul. Strong feelings of community are the basis of spirituality and Patti was loaded with a great sense of community.

Beautiful, slightly chunky, big boobs, very smart and an enthusiastic tennis player, with easy laughter, was Patti Brown. Jews and Catholics seem to connect easily and often. Jesus was a Jew so we have 'Jews For Jesus' which I always thought was a punch line for a religious joke.

Thinking of those big boobs reminds me of the first and only time that I tried sex on Patti. So one evening, Patti was sitting in my lap, a little tipsy from inhaling too much wine (or else why would she be in my lap) and Patti said, "I feel horny."

Taking that comment as a signal from God my left hand went swiftly and directly to Patti's right tit. Patti brushed my hand away and she left my lap as though she was shot out of a fucking cannon. For sure, Patti wasn't that horny.

Patti became a focus of my life, sexless notwithstanding. Patti was a notch above slightly crazy but really smart, a wonderful combination. Being around totally predictable and sane people is really plenty fucking boring. Patti was anything but boring.

And Patti loved to laugh which, for me, was a substitute for an orgasm. (How was I to know that at around age 87 me and orgasms would take different paths?)

Patti was a dedicated devotee of astrology and our 'signs' made us a 'perfect' pair. Until Patti, gratefully, came into my life, cancer was a sickness and a scorpion was a deadly fucking bug. Turned out that Cancer and Scorpio are Astrological signs.

Also it turns out that Patti and I may have been a perfect pair in Astrology but not in life. We went out a lot. No dating. 'Dating' implies sex of which I enjoyed none with Patti. We just went out, a lot.

Fortunately Patti's Irish DNA didn't include the Irish proclivity for booze. ('An Irish queer is a guy who likes women better than booze.' Quote forever true).

In the late seventies EST and having your colors done, were the rage. EST had its pseudo shrink approach where no matter how good your life was, they were going to make it better. The Princess had thrown me out. How much better could life be?

Getting your 'Colors' done was a Patti Brown, off the wall, kind of a thing. So up to SF Patti schlepped my Jewish ass to get my colors done. Which meant finding out which color clothes best suited my personality which in turn would make made me more attractive. At that time my 'Brioni Awakening' hadn't really yet happened. Takes a lot to look like shit in a Brioni suit.

Throw in Turnbull, Asser shirts, Hermes ties, Weston shoes and even I could look good. Never great until I became eligible for the third of three stages in life. First you are young, then you become middle aged, then you're looking great.

After hours of being questioned by a color 'expert', who was a nice woman and clearly a frustrated shrink and quite a bits nuts, I was declared an Autumn. Patti's presence saved me from institutionalizing myself during the q and a.

We then went to the North Beach Restaurant and had a great WOP dinner and headed, exhausted and stuffed, back to Palo Alto on the then new Hwy. 280. Very light traffic made it feel like a deserted, back road in those early days.

Patti asked if she could take a nap. A day that included going to the City, talking to the whacked out colors woman and directing my colors inquisition had wiped out that poor broad. I told Patti to do it. Then, in spite of having a ton of coffee earlier and driving 70 miles an hour, I joined her for a quick nap.

My eyes opened when the car took down two saplings, slammed into and under a chain link fence and bounced off of huge oak tree before it came to a halt. Driving on snow and ice in Iowa had taught me not to hit the brakes. My Mercedes convertible was totaled but thanks to God, both Patti and I were able to walk across the field to a lone house and get rides home. Both of us virtually unscathed.

The punch line to that saga is that unbeknownst to me, the Princess, in all her fucking self righteousness, had cancelled my car insurance. Starting over for me without a car was made all the more tough.

I had just quit drinking and Patti, was wonderful to and for me. Patti gave me a purpose in life with her smile, laughter, brains and her touch of insanity. (It takes one, to know one).

Saw Patti, the other day, for the first time in decades and she looked fabulous. Slim, trim, beautiful and still with a knockout smile and laugh.

In the end Patti's Astrologer was on the money in telling Patti to 'kiss me off'. Living with someone brings out the worst in me. Which can be plenty bad.

~

Profligate Spending, Wham...Bam...Slam...Goodbye Ma'am

Fat and skinny had a race, all around the pillow case. Fat fell down and broke his face; Skinny won the race.

• There was a Jewish oil guy in Wyoming who was being offered, a ranch that included some Black Angus cattle that were being grass fed on the ranch. The oilman reacted with a classic line (true story)... "I never own anything that's eating while I'm sleeping"

• The Italians have a great line, "Unless you can stand ingratitude, never do anything for anybody". Makes it essential to do good things for good's sake, to have a good name, which is its own reward.

• Ever wonder, as I do, what 40-year-old hookers turn to when they quit hooking. Fucking for fun or sport fucking seems out. Those worn out hookers probably marry guys who have little interest in sex.

• In the late seventies the Regency Hotel bar in The Big Apple used to attract older (thirty something) hookers. Very expensive. The crème de la crème of hooker bars in NYC was the Sherry Netherland Hotel bar. Knockout looking women, seriously expensive (sadly, way out of my pay scale) but the opening, introductory question, no matter what the pay scale was, "Are you a working girl?”

• The all time fun bar in NYC was Maxwell's Plum. Always 4-5 deep with young guys looking to fall in love for an hour or two (wham, bam, slam, good bye ma’am) and the gals mostly looking to fall in love. Made little difference to me because I couldn't get laid in a whore house with a $100 bill pasted on my forehead much less pick up a straight woman for some 'action '. Without booze in me I had no delusions. Also, a guy in his 50's chasing young pussy is a non starter, except if the guy is rich and open handed.

• In Midland, Texas there was Lonnie, the bellman and an absolutely great guy, who was Midland's premier pimp (great personality with a stable of girls at his disposal). In the 70's Midland was a booming oil town and hookers were attracted to it. The last I heard Lonnie was shining shoes and making everyone laugh.

• Calgary, Canada was the last of the Wild West towns with the hookers patrolling "hotel row". The French Maid was a low down bar with upscale Johns. I stepped into an elevator at the International Hotel with a young woman already in the elevator. The elevator doors closed and she promptly grabbed my 'privates' and asked if I wanted a 'trick'. While being at a loss for words isn't my style, I was so startled that the elevator arrived at my floor before I could say 'No thanks'. Turned out that the hookers never left the elevators until some one said, 'Yes, how much do you charge?'

• In retrospect, I find it remarkable that I did my business and evolved into a very successful one-man 'investment bank'. With it all, I developed a deep store of knowledge of the oil and gas business plus a formidable address book of folks that are big and small time in the world of finance. This all happened both in my drinking and non drinking days.

• Sober, I raised some $1 billion (adjusted for inflation) from natural gas pipeline investments for blue chip pension funds while making good friends with the people I solicited for investment dollars. Bunches of money came my way which was promptly dispersed to my kids, ex wives, friends, hookers and strangers.

• Drinking or not I squeezed a ton of living out of my profligate and busted on my lower case jewish ass lives. In the bag or not, I lived on the edge always looking for the unexpected. Both courses were nerve wracking and wonderful, simultaneously.

• While I am busted on my ass, I am wealthy with friends dead and alive, not including my first ex wife who actively disliked me. I'm really sorry that she died but I sure don't miss her.

~

Golden Years

90, breathing hard on, God willing, 91.

Waking up at 5:30 from an oldster's fitful so called sleep, feeling like shit but thinking of Dean Martin's unforgettable line, ‘knowing that it was as bad as I was going to feel all day'.

My number one thing to do, after getting dressed for my day in the trenches of trying to feel optimistic is to check the obits of the NYT and SF Chronicle on line, to see if I'm still alive. 'So far so good' as the guy who jumped off of a 50 story building said as he passed the 30th floor on the way down.

Being inspired with the knowledge that I'm still alive, and touching my toes for a stretch plus doing a wall crawl for posture, gets me going into the kitchen to make a healthy, but really boring, fucking breakfast.

Fresh fruit smoothie, raisin toast, at least 3 cups of coffee plus the inevitable oldster pills. My thyroid, diuretic and sinus pills plus vitamin supplements round out the breakfast.

By then the newspapers have arrived and links that my friends might care about start going out. My friends probably cringe when my name shows up and think that 'here is that old son of a bitch again'. Every once, in a long while, a 'thank you shows' up on my screen.

Then the diuretic pill kicks in and awhizzing I must go. When you're 90 'holding it in' is not an option. 'Holding it in' means an underwear change. Drip, drip, drip or go to the head are my choices.

And if my schlong could get as stiff as the rest of me, sex would, gratefully, come back into my life. And pigs will fly.

It isn't erectile dysfunction that attacks my schlong. It's old age dysfunction. As Willie Nelson so famously said, "I'm sorry that my dick died before the rest of me". Golden years? The inventor of that line must have been 25 years old. Golden Years at 90? Yeah, my lower case bronx, jewish, fat ass.

My Golden Years started in my callow youth and ended in my late 70's. Those in between years including the ones in the service were, in retrospect, my Golden Years . I was a profligate spender my entire life.

Spent on my family, my friends and certainly myself. I was always certain that I could replace the considerable amount of money that I spent every day. And replace it I did into my late 70's. I loved every minute of giving it away and spending it.

The first sign of the end of my Golden Years came when my dick started to die. I went from hookers galore, loose and easy, to a once in awhile triumph of being able to do it. Hookers, as I have often said, were wonderful. For a few hundred dollars, I got to fall in love for a half an hour a time. I didn't have to make any conversation and the burden of proof was never on me. And when it was over she was gone. No cuddling!!

My decline during my Golden Years became really apparent when pictures of naked, beautiful young women with big boobs (aka tits) were boring. Then when people started asking me if I was retired, I knew that my Golden Years had, for the most part, ended. Living those Golden Years believing that moderation is fatal and plenty fucking boring as well was wonderful. Very little done in excess is very little done.

Trying to do good for doing's sake, not to generate a reward has, to this day, been a turn on for me. Touching people's lives has always been an important goal...

Putting myself under the gun (as in spending more than I made) provided the impetus (aka adrenaline rushes) that I needed to keep me in money making motion. Being fucking stress addicted is in my DNA.

So here I am, almost 70 years after taking one on Okinawa, as happy as a pig in shit with at least 70 Golden Years and a Purple Heart. The last five years haven't been too swift, but with 75 Golden Years out of 9o total years my life has been more than just okay. Happy as the proverbial pig in shit or a clam in mud.

I often wonder what happens to a 40 year old ex-hooker. Probably marries an old man with very little, if any, interest in sex.

Weed, Shrinks and Group Analysis

'There is nothing more boring than perfect.', said the spider to the fly.

Smoking dope wasn't my thing. Tried it once. The Princess liked it. Our next door neighbor, a shrink loved it and always had a supply of marijuana on hand. I went to several parties, after I quit drinking, that were shrink centric. Smoking dope was the life of the shrink's parties.

So, being Jewish, automatically guilty and in defiance of Einstein's law where he says that if you keep doing the same thing over and over again, each time looking for a different result, you are insane, I went, one more time after the Princess unloaded me, to a shrink.

Proving my second ex-wife correct. The first one thought me to be "bizarre" while my second ex-wife thought me "strange" or "crazy".

Group therapy is an unbelievable experience. You sit in a circle and each person talked about their problems. And, as with one on one sessions with the shrink, no one ever left any session laughing.

Having spent 50 minutes exploring what the hell was wrong with you, makes it plenty fucking tough to feel good about yourself. Maybe the phrase 'circle jerk' came out of group therapy.

The big plus of shrinkage is that you learn all about yourself which took me about a year. You get to know why you do a lot of stuff. But knowing why you're fucking up is a long way from stopping being fucking up. But at least you know why.

The big minus is that the shrink gets to look at you as a big fucking milk cow but the teats have money in them not milk. Squeezing those teats provide for wives, kids, mortgages and 'girlfriends'. Letting go of the ‘milk cow' is seldom prime on the agenda.

So, in my 'group' was a good looking, smart woman who was married to a shrink. She was the group 'facilitator', whatever that meant. One day she showed up wearing a Star of David. She was as Irish as Paddy's pig which stimulated a lot of curiosity.

An Irish broad wearing the Star of David just didn’t work. We later found out that the shrink who was Jewish was banging her and since she was already married a fucking engagement ring wouldn't work. So they settled on a gold Star of David hanging on a gold chain hanging around her not so golden goddamn neck.

They both got divorces and did marry, with the shrink's original wife going off the fucking wall. She in turn signed up, right away, for therapy with another shrink. As with me, she was a slow learner. She was Jewish, so she believed that the divorce was all her fault.

And is it any wonder that shrinks bang their patients and vice versa? The patient, in my view, mixes up dependence with love so 'afucking' we will go. Didn't work for me. Never had a woman shrink nor am I gay.

A memorable experience, actually a nightmare, was a 24 hour marathon group session where everyone sat around a circle, for 24 hours, slamming one another and just beating the shit out of your thinking, your personality, the way you dressed and anything else someone in the group could think of that made you unacceptable.

Spending 24 hours being told that you are a worthless piece of shit ain't fun. The only laughs were the ones you were the subject of.

I have always believed that 'interventions' used on drunks and addicts came out of group fucking therapy.

Life without premeditation is wonderful....

Marijuana, Kurt, The Vatican

Going to Rome by way of Tel Aviv and Kibbutz Mishmar David to see Kurt made perfect sense to me since acting without premeditation came naturally to me.

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 making individual investments in the venture capital arena.

Not only was our basic concept terrible but the business plan really sucked. Making investments in venture deals found and vetted by others turned out to be really different than developing and vetting your own deals. Like the difference between night and day.

One of my partners knew a guy (Lloyd Hand) who had been Chief of Protocol for President Johnson, so he knew every son of a bitch and his uncle. We paid him $10,000 (About $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 fucking nut with a knife.

The trip was wild, booze driven, insane trip. Travel for me back then was a way to get away from the Princess, really drink big time and walk around feeling like shit every day. A good trade off for me. Rather feel like shit than be treated like shit.

"Kurt I'm going to give you three options. You can finish high school and go to Israel. You can quit high school now and go to Israel. Or Kurt, you can go to jail. You have a week to make up your mind.”

”You are maniac.", the Princess screamed at me. We were sitting in our all white living room and for a fucking flash I thought that I'd be a victim of domestic violence with that sweet demure Princess beating the shit out of me, while I bled red in a fucking sea of white.

When we built that Jewish mansion (aka a house you can't afford) the Princess and her decorator came up with all white furnishings for the living room, which made the living room unlivable. Unfucking real.

So the living room was designed for adult groups only. The only time that the kids were allowed in that fucking room was when they were in trouble with me or the Princess. It was a come to Jesus room. It was an all white 'woodshed' without a horse whip or club. Lots of ranting words by me was the punishment of choice.

Kurt had a kidney ailment and was in and out of the Stanford Convalescent Home for Children, which literally saved his life. Being in and out of school was a great hindrance in his making lasting friends at school though he did have a few. He started shooting pool and coming home at all hours. The Princess would wake me in the middle of the night to find him, which I’d sometimes do but mostly not.

His friends were pool hall bums. They would come to the house to play poker, each guy looking worse than the other. When those fucking bums started showing up at the door (seldom used) looking for Kurt I got really spooked. In between all the action, the Princess and I went away for a weekend. Came home to find the un-living room a virtual shambles with Russian antiques pieces, for all practical purposes, destroyed.

So one Sunday night, without premeditation or discussion with the Ice Queen, I issued my ultimatum. Two Israel and one jail option.. with a week to decide.

The following Sunday Kurt told me that Israel absolutely now, was his choice. He was less than a month from high school graduation and the Princess, an education freak, started crying. But it was apparent to me that Kurt was up to his ass in alligators.

The next morning Kurt came with me to S.F. to go to the Passport Bureau.

Filled out the forms but we didn't have his Goddamn birth certificate. So we left the bureau and I went into action. Phoned Iowa for instructions. Sent $2.50 to Iowa, special delivery, where Kurt was born. Enclosed another $2.50 for the bureau to return the birth certificate special delivery.

Memorial Day weekend, starting that Thursday, was coming up and the Passport Bureau was to be closed Friday. I had an intuitive feeling that time was of the essence. Wednesday arrived and so did the fucking birth certificate. So down to Passport Bureau to get the passport went Helene my secretary.

Helene was beautiful, a good worker but not a Phi Beta Kappa Key candidate. She phoned from the bureau to tell me that there was an enormous line and doubted that she would get to the front before closing.

San Francisco Passport Bureau

"Get up close to a window and just stare at the clerk. Do not take your eyes off him/her. The clerk will feel the pressure, call you up to the window and ask you what you want. Get the passport." Which is exactly what happened and Helene got the passport.

Thursday evening Kurt was packing to take the Red Eye to New York when in walked the police to pick him up for selling marijuana. The Princess was hysterical while I had a few pops to sustain me and concentrated on finding an attorney.

Kurt was one of 13 kids from affluent, upscale Woodside and Portola Valley. Most of the kids had been picked up at least once before.

Turns out that the Princess and I were the only parents in attendance and Kurt was the only one with an attorney. When I asked one of Kurt's arresting officers where the other kids’ parents were with attorneys for their kids, the officer said "The fathers are probably traveling and the Mothers are in the bag. Attorneys? No way were the parents going to spend any more money on those kids."

After Kurt was gone the car he had been driving was taken in for service and a big bunch of marijuana was found stuffed behind the front dashboard. Plus shoe boxes full of grass were found in his closet.

Kurt was on the Mishmar David Kibbutz in Israel when I was going to Rome. 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. Spent a night on the Kibbutz which was memorable. It was only a few years after the '67 war and spirits and ideals on this communal farm were high.

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.

The P U Club, Dale Frey, Ken Langone

Living a life of always going ‘Up The Down Stairway’ and lovin' it...

"This club, (The Pacific Union Club in S.F.) has a Circumcision Detector and a loud bell goes off when I walk in so I always come in through the back door (basically the women's entrance) which doesn't have the detector. The effect of tripping the Detector would be like hearing an earthquake alert."

The membership committee of the P U Club had never really recognized that Jesus was a Jew. This was before the goofy Jews for Jesus, non-movement had gained any traction at all.

Pacific Union Club

It was at a Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation small, exclusive fund raising dinner hosted by Dale Frey and Ken Langone that I spewed those words in answer to a question.

Since both Dale and Ken knew me, but not all that well, they thought that since I was a big earner, living large, that God had taught me how to accumulate money and make it grow. As well as how to piss it away on the Princess (aka First Ex Wife), my kids, myself and various sundry strangers, who probably, like the Princess, thought that I was 'bizarre’. Profligate for sure. Bizarre? Suit yourself.

There were a few others at the dinner including a fabulously wealthy guy who had extracted some big time investment money from Dale Frey's GE Pension Trust. He too was Jewish like me but he was so fucking rich that they turned off the Circumcision Detector when he showed up.

He couldn't become a member of the fucking P U club but his rich friends covered for him when he was invited to the club...he went through the front door.

So at this small exclusive dinner the Executive Director of the Foundation was my next chair neighbor. She was from Tennessee, a really good looking woman and for some weird reason kept asking me the damnedest questions about myself.

Being powerless over my own bullshit, I was more than just happy to accommodate this Southern Beauty. We all know that a man thinks with his eyes.

Then came her question about how often I came to the P U Club. I looked at her like a bull with a bastard calf. My response was that due to the Circumcision Detector, that me and the P U Club were hardly kissin' cousins.

The dinner itself was a cross between great and pretty awful. The awful part, for me, came when the scientist doctors went through their research results and the progress of the research programs. Those descriptions were eye glazing.

The fun part was just listening to Ken and Dale. Nothing eye glazing about either one. They were apparently going to a few cities, with wives, in Ken's burner, aka airplane and enjoying each city and each other.

Naturally, in playing the game, I made a commitment which I promptly paid. I was right in predicting to Dale that it would take a few phone calls to extract the commitment that the big rich guy made.

One day, when I heard an eagle screaming and saw pigs flying, I knew that Dale had accomplished his purpose for the Foundation. Later, Ken, Dale and I had a few laughs about the whole affair, particularly the part about the Circumcision Detector.

One of the partners at the NYSE bucket shop for which I worked, Laury Ames, a Continental Air founder, invited me to lunch at Snobsville a few times. I always came in through the back. The people at the bar, serious pre-lunch drinkers, were divided into two clusters. One group was made up of retired club members with the second group still gainfully employed. There was a real class distinction at the P U Club with the working stiffs looking down on the retired people.

Two different worlds at one pompous fucking bar.

Putting in a four letter word show for the waiters at the P U Club was fun. They were snobs as well and would be properly horrified at my foul language. They apparently didn't subscribe to my idol George Carlin's philosophy that 'there are no bad words, just bad thoughts'.