WHO KNEW?

I have friends who browbeat me about Saddam, who insisted he had to go, who bought all the lies about weapons of mass destruction, who smiled at the quick victory Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and the rest of them declared. And when it all went wrong, and millions of human beings departed and trillions of dollars vanished, those friends shook their heads and mouthed….

Who knew?

Not quite an apology but almost an acknowledgement.

I knew. We knew. We who know that the path to world peace is not through world war. We who don’t see every almost daily horrific mass murder by lunatic misguided individuals as an invitation to crackdown, to panic, to manufacture more and deadlier weaponry, to wage war. We who know that the solution is not to throw billions and billions of bomb dollars at what is absolutely a human tragedy and crisis but rather to hurl humanity at the problem. Share the wealth just a little bit more equitably worldwide and throw safety net, occupational, healthy food, clean water, shelter, educational, medical, environmental, local community, artistic, and cultural dollars at the problem and in a generation or less the bulk of American dollars will go to bridges and not bombs. The powers that be will still have more power and wealth than they could possibly ever enjoy and consume. Alienation, hatred, bitterness, and a compulsion to destroy will lurk in fewer and fewer corners of this beautiful nation and planet. The last four years we had a president who talked tough and preached trickle down all the while slashing programs designed to help the young find a good path and the old survive. Many of those same friends shook those same heads….

Who knew?

Not quite an apology but almost an acknowledgement.

It will have to do, let’s move forward.

A hundred years ago we didn’t have a standing army and a gargantuan military line item feeding our GDP. We didn’t see the need to always deploy our young men and women in hostile territory. Yes, it is a dangerous world getting more dangerous every day. But it should be obvious by now that tribalism and walls and bombs and bullets don’t work. Books do, butter does, volunteers, medicine, communications and technology, fair wages, they all work wonders. Not overnight but over time. America first is not about exclusion or tribalism; it’s about leadership, about the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth setting an example of equality, fairness, cooperation, and brotherhood that the rest of the planet will be all too eager to follow.

Soldiers follow orders. If we truly want to honor the memory of those bravest of us every Memorial Day, those who lost their lives in passionate pursuit of ideals they embraced with every ounce of their being, those who sacrificed everything for us, we need to be worthy of giving those orders.

In memory of my father Herman Brav, pictured below on the right with a Brother in Arms with the 69th Infantry in April 1945 Germany, and all the men and women who have served our nation so courageously.

Memorial Day 2021

This Memorial Day, thinking about my Dad and the WWII journey he never wanted to talk much about other than "I saw a lot of action" and "I made it home". Thinking about his best buds Gambino and Walisko who did not and all the other brave souls who never made it home from foreign lands either. My father was 69th Infantry, 271st Division from 1942 to 1946, from Camp Shelby in Mississippi to England through France, Germany, Belgium, Leipzig, Buchenwald, Switzerland, and on that great ship home to NYC in March 1946. One irony is that the displaced Polish refugee he was going to fall in love with years later was on another ship, from Murmansk to Philadelphia, at the very same time. Miss them both so much.

WITHOUT YOU

When they say the internet has given us too much information at our fingertips, perhaps they had Harry Nilsson and Without You in mind. It was released during my junior year of high school on every radio station at all hours of the day and night, eventually rising to everyone’s Number One in early 1972 and winning that year’s Grammy for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. Opening with an unforgettable piano intro before Harry Nilsson’s sorrowful voice begins.

No, I can’t forget this evening or your face as you were leaving,
but I guess that’s just the way the story goes. 

The song was everywhere even as Nilsson, Brooklyn-born and concert-shy, was not. Labeled by Paul McCartney as “the killer song of all time”, it was the perfect wailing plaint for this 16 year-old dreaming of love, the ultimate declaration of commitment.

I can’t live if living is without you,
I can’t live, I can’t give anymore. 

As serious as serious gets. Real love in the face of apparent loss.

I mostly missed out on Harry Nilsson then and am only finding him now, more than a quarter century after his fatal heart attack at 53. With the internet and all the fleshing out of anything it offers, there is the good and the bad. For most of my life, the song itself was enough. Every time I heard that spare but simple piano opening, I was in awe of this ballad, dwelling on the beautiful flow, that piano, Nilsson’s voice, the powerful chorus, and the overwhelming power of love whether found or lost.

Only now am I learning that the song was a rarity for Harry Nilsson, a hit written by someone else. Pete Ham and Tom Evans of Badfinger had collaborated across time and space. Ham had written If It’s Love, some very good lyrics in search of a chorus which he later located in bandmate Evans’ I Can’t Live. In one of the more dramatic examples of the whole is just so much bigger than the sum of the parts, the combination of the two works in progress worked, if not for Badfinger which released it on 1970’s No Dice (a version missed by yours truly and pretty much everyone else). Adding Gary Wright’s piano, Harry’s voice, an orchestra, and world-class production a year later was the difference maker. Ham recalled: “As soon as we heard it, we knew that was the way we wanted to do it but never had the nerve…Nilsson’s version really showed what you can do with a song, production-wise, and with a good singer. It blew me away.” Two decades later, Mariah Carey’s powerful cover sparked interest for a new generation. That’s the good news.

The bad is mostly about Badfinger, a group influenced by The Beatles and signed to their Apple Records, a band that might have been more aptly named Badkarma, Badfortune, or Badnews. Their George Harrison produced hit ballad Day After Day (“...looking out from my lonely room, day after day, bring it home, baby, make it soon, I give my love to you…”), theme song for stalkers No Matter What (“…no matter what you do, I will always be around, won't you tell me what you found girl, ooh girl want you, knock down the old grey wall, be a part of it all…”) and Paul McCartney composition and open invitation Come and Get It (“…if you want it, here it is, come and get it, but you better hurry ‘cause it’s going fast…”) still resonate after all these years but bad management, bad decisions and bad luck killed the good band. Not Ham and Evans though; they killed themselves. Ham in 1975, Evans eight years later, both by hanging, both upset over money and royalties, much of which would have derived from Without You. Ham, broke and 28 years old, left a note: “[Manager] Stan Polley is a soulless bastard. I will take him with me.”

Harry Nilsson passed in 1994. When one recalls his debut as a singer on Hoyt Axton’s Everybody’s Talkin’ (“…everybody’s talking at me, I don’t hear a word they’re saying…”) from Midnight Cowboy; learns that he wrote One (“…one is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do, two can be as bad as one, it’s the loneliest number since the number one…”) that Three Dog Night made famous in 1969; smiles along with Spaceman (“…bang, bang, shoot ‘em up destiny, bang, bang, shoot ‘em to the moon…”), Me and My Arrow (“…me and my arrow, straighter than narrow, wherever we go, everyone knows, it’s me and my arrow…”), Coconut (“…she put the lime in the coconut, she drank ‘em both up, she put the lime in the coconut, she called the doctor, woke him up…”), I Guess the Lord Must Be in New York City (“…I’ll say goodbye to all my sorrow, and by tomorrow, I’ll be on my way…”), and (his friend Randy Newman’s) Sail Away (“…in America you'll get food to eat, you won't have to run through the jungle and scuff up your feet, you'll just sing about Jesus and drink wine all day, it's great to be an American…”); listens to the hyper Gotta Get Up (“…gotta get up, gotta get out, before the morning comes…”) and anthem Let the Good Times Roll (“…c'mon baby, let the good times roll, c'mon baby, let me thrill your soul, c'mon baby you're the best there is, roll all night long…”) from his Nilsson Schmillson LP masterwork; and revels in the joy he expressed with Over the Rainbow and other classics in his standards album A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night, we know his passing was sadly way too early. Same can be said for Pete Ham and Tom Evans. We’ve all gone on living without them, thankful for what they left behind.

*********

NOTE: In researching this piece, I came across a terrific online music magazine Elsewhere. I plan to check out more of it when I have the time. https://www.elsewhere.co.nz/somethingelsewhere/6654/badfinger-and-harry-nilsson-without-them-no-without-you/

Of NFT, Wealth Tax and Toilet Paper

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/11/arts/design/nft-auction-christies-beeple.html

Read the news today, oh boy….see above link...someone named Beeple (never heard of him) sold an NFT (never heard of it) for $69 million through auction house Christie's. I have never understood the market pricing for art that you could actually hang on a wall or collectibles you could hold in your hand. When prices got truly out of whack for items that weren't quite Picasso or a 1952 Mantle rookie card, I thought it said a good deal about the amount of money flying around the world into the hands of the very chosen few. But now that we've let pricing insanity get into cyberspace with these Non Fungible Tokens, I have two things to say. One, where is that Wealth Tax? Two, I have decided to cash in and make available the very first of a series of photographs of toilet paper stuck to shoes around the world, this one a certified (by me) original of a (possibly) famous (possibly) French woman in Paris in 1983, auction details coming soon and part of a set guaranteed not to exceed 100 numbered digital prints.

Brothers in Arms...Coming Soon

I can't begin to think how my life would be without the music of our times. You may have noticed from prior posts that Mark Knopfler is in my Top 5 (with The Beatles, Stones, Led Zeppelin, and Joni Mitchell). Of all his amazing musicianship and songwriting, Brothers in Arms still stands out for me. Just stumbled on Joan Baez doing it in 1987 but there's nothing like the Dire Straits original from 1985. I still own the domain name as my first (written in 1992 and as yet unpublished) novel bears the same title.

https://music.amazon.com/search/brothers%20in%20arms%20dire%20straits?filter=IsLibrary%7Cfalse&sc=none

What I've Learned

I have promised myself and everyone I know not to think about or talk about the current administration after this coming Wednesday. But there are a few things I've learned about the last four years that have helped me understand things just a little bit better so I am passing them along.

1. When someone wonders aloud "Who knew?!?!", the answer is usually everyone except the speaker.

2. The terms stable genius and unstable moron are synonymous.

3. Although approximately 75 million Americans love horseradish and anchovies, it doesn't make them good.

4. Covfefe can be a noun, adjective and adverb.

5. The phrase a lot of people are saying is meant to refer to anyone still working at Fox News.

6. The My Pillow Guy scares me more than anything Stephen King ever created.

7. You actually have to win to get tired of too much winning.

That’s it, little life lessons now, hopefully distant memories in the near future. Hoping for the best, for all of us!

MAILING FROM PHILADELPHIA (and Georgia, Arizona and beyond)

Not long after the turn of a century that so often seems to be spinning out of control, one of my favorite musical artists, Mark Knopfler, released his second solo album. It was six weeks before the seminal Bush versus Gore election, a fissure that has been cracking ever wider since.

Sailing to Philadelphia tells the story of English surveyors George Mason and Jeremiah Dixon on their way across the Atlantic for the 1760s mapping project of their lifetimes, and so it still seems, ours. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrLdKYRBOEE On its face, the 233-mile Mason Dixon Line running west and south from Philadelphia was the culmination of dispute resolution that would delineate part of the border between Pennsylvania and Delaware to the north and Maryland and what is now West Virginia to the south. It would quickly become so much more than that, a literal divide between slavery and abolition, a symbolic separator of North and South in these United States. Marked stones placed a mile apart on the ground, the Delaware River, maps with legends, tangents and keys, all evolved into a wall seemingly higher and more impenetrable than anything ever fancied for Mexico.

I love the song itself, inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s 1997 novel Mason & Dixon. It is a role play between two genuine rock stars in their prime, James Taylor’s baker turned stargazer Mason and Knopfler’s fun-loving longtime surveyor Dixon, echoed by Knopfler’s beautifully haunting guitar.

Now you're a good surveyor, Dixon, but I swear you'll make me mad
The West will kill us both, you gullible Geordie lad
You talk of liberty, how can America be free
A Geordie and a baker's boy, in the forests of the Iroquois

Now hold your head up, Mason, see America lies there
The morning tide has raised the capes of Delaware
Come up and feel the sun, a new morning has begun
Another day will make it clear, why your stars should guide us here

We are sailing to Philadelphia, a world away from the coaly Tyne
Sailing to Philadelphia, to draw the line, a Mason Dixon Line

I am listening to those lyrics again, hearing new meaning, with the backdrop of this past week of nail-biting votes tallied in every corner of this country, and most importantly in the City of Brotherly Love (also known for the rest of 2020 by city resolution in honor of the 19th Amendment, and perhaps forever, as the City of Sisterly Love). The irony and the hope seem clearer to me than ever before. A career public servant, a good man risen from Pennsylvania and Delaware, accompanied by a good woman risen from the battles of history, confronted with the challenge of this generation and all that will come after that. Knocking down walls, blurring lines, changing the arc of history for the better. I’m pretty sure George and Jeremiah would approve. Come up and feel the sun, a new morning has begun. Indeed.

Almira Gulch 2020

November 6, 2020 Update

“Oh, what a world, what a world, who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness?”

For many years I’ve seen comparisons between the true believers in our current president and the faith of the populace and newcomer Dorothy in that wonderful Wizard of Oz. Seems I wasn’t alone because Kamala Harris, Jeanne Moos, Hillary Clinton back in the day, and surely millions of others, saw the similarities.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2019/09/13/kamala-harris-trump-small-dude-wizard-oz-comparison-sot-mxp-vpx.hln

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n87Eq9EY4To

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2016/jul/19/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-entrance-wizard-of-oz-video

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-09-29-billionaire-wizard-trump-exposed-as-a-tax-avoiding-wizard-of-oz/

Once exposed from behind the curtain, the mere mortal flimflam wizard makes sure to sweetly bestow a diploma, medal and heart-shaped testimonial on Dorothy’s three flawed companions before flying the coop in his hot air balloon. Sweetness? Bowing out gracefully?

Maybe I was looking in the wrong direction. It was not so nice Almira Gulch, soon to be the not so nice hag from the west, who “owned half the county” (although it does not appear that she was heavily leveraged), hated dogs, wasn’t against shouting a lot, and used the court system ad infinitum to get her way. Sure, she was pretty good on that bicycle, had good posture, and elocution, but I’m thinking she, and her melting alter ego, may well be the better fictional ancestors.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jcm4kwmz44

Times have changed. Here’s hoping that, unlike Auntie Em who held her tongue for twenty-three years, some of those “Christian women” will speak up on Tuesday after only four.

Trick Down ECONOMICS

"...what we’ve learned is that unemployment can be even lower than we thought and not result in troubling levels of inflation...we had 3.5% unemployment, which was sort of the lowest period of sustained unemployment in 50 years. And we didn't see inflation result...with globalization, things can be made anywhere, and that means it's difficult to raise wages or prices. So if you raise wage costs or prices, someone will find a cheaper place in the world to make a product or increasingly to deliver a service. And all of that is enabled by advancing technology..." --- Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell interview with NPR September 4, 2020 https://www.npr.org/2020/09/04/909590044/transcript-nprs-full-interview-with-fed-chairman-jerome-powell

This, and much of the rest of the interview, is an explanation that the Federal Reserve’s mandate will not see it accomplishing what some might think it can and should. Yet we continue a laser focus on the Fed, wait for it to wave its magic wand, lower rates, buy bonds and maybe even stocks. For a generation all its magic has done is increase inequality and take focus away from what really needs to be done for the vast majority of the people in this country who have little capital but plenty of energy and desire to work to prosper too.

Although Chairman Powell has much in the way of explanation of what the Fed does, how interest rates work and how he thinks inequality rose so sharply, we have been watching the Fed’s magic act for a long time now. Fixating at the end of the last century on whether Allan Greenspan's bulging briefcase portended another rate cut. Imagining Ben Bernanke wincing a bit when big business took its bailout billions and did a much more efficient job of buying back stock, searching out overseas tax loopholes, restoring and then boosting eye-opening top level executive pay, and keeping average man wages stagnant than investing in manufacturing in this country or creating good-paying jobs with reasonable benefits.

Powell tells us that wages have been stagnant for a long time and he tells us some of the reasons why, matter of factly, all during an era when job insecurity, retirement security, food insecurity, and security insecurity have soared in sync with the major stock exchanges. The Fed takes out its tool chest to support business, through less manic times and the ever more recurring crises, and I’m sure hopes that this time will be different. Sharp-eyed financiers understandably accept cheap money and, trust me on this, their number one priority is not boosting employee compensation but rather sending down as little trickle as possible. The Fed is de facto a cheerleader for the fantastical trickle-down when it should be a pallbearer.

Of course there’s no inflation, and there isn't going to be any, ever, not in the lesser struggling economy the Fed measures. The inflation is over in the other economy, the one with the 30 million dollar condominiums and 20 million dollar yachts, the one with the capital that will benefit from the low rates and scream socialist at anyone who questions where all that cheap money came from and what they should do with it.

Of Good Music and Bad Parties

I’ve been thinking a lot about the upcoming Republican National Convention in Charlotte getting started on August 24. It can’t be easy planning such an event in the best of circumstances and coordinating logistics for thousands of unmasked true believers this year will be even tougher. Scattering people of color at good camera angles in the middle of all that whiteness. Finding folks without shares of stock to thank goodness for tax reform. Trotting out seniors who worry about Mexicans more than losing their Social Security. Tough road to haul.

Finding the stars and influencers to show up will be harder than filling Celebrity Row for Knicks games at Madison Square Garden the past few years. (Turtle from Entourage was there every night I was and I’m not sure he’s done anything since Turtle from Entourage.) Kanye certainly won’t be available; he’s off on his own campaign trail that starts and ends in his own mind. Do count on the usual suspects though. Gary Busey, James Woods, Dennis Rodman, Jon Voight, Chuck Woolery, Scott Baio, Dean Cain, Stacey Dash, Ted Nugent. Either find the money to get them to Carolina or beam them in on the giant screen.

But what about the music? It seems unfair that all the good songs are controlled by all the pinko lefty songwriters and artists that are always sending out those annoying lawyer letters after the fact. A quick check on Wikipedia reveals that the list of musicians opposing the use of their music by Trump and the Republicans sounds like the roster of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musicians_who_oppose_Donald_Trump%27s_use_of_their_music#:~:text=In%202015%2C%20vocalist%20Michael%20Stipe,video%20containing%20the%20unauthorized%20use

As Trump was campaigning for president, Aerosmith was decrying his use of Dream On, Bruce was shutting down Born in the U.S.A. and R.E.M. was ending It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine). Adele, Elton John, Neil Young, Nickelback, Pharrell Williams, Prince’s estate, Queen, Rihanna, the Rolling Stones, Tom Petty, and even Luciano Pavarotti have all gotten into the act of negation. Yet my favorite has to be Beatle George Harrison’s estate which condemned the 2016 convention organizers for introducing daughter Ivanka Trump to Here Comes the Sun but subsequently conveyed possible permission for Harrison’s Beware of Darkness. https://music.amazon.com/search/beware+of+darkness

As someone once said, sad, very sad.

Yet songs are available and they should be played, intellectual property rights and artistic feelings be damned. Any party that can stop the post office can certainly fill out a dance card. So here they are, my carefully curated recommendations for great evenings of musical introductions to the stars of the Republican Party. Please do feel free to add to the list or come up with your own suggestions. But hurry, the convention’s only a week away, and you can’t have a good party without good music.

Stephen Miller, Senior Advisor REFUGEE (Tom Petty) https://music.amazon.com/search/tom+petty+refugee

Elizabeth Prince DeVos, Secretary of Education SCHOOL’S OUT (Alice Cooper) https://music.amazon.com/search/schools+out+alice+cooper

Mitch McConnell, United States Senator YOU’RE NO GOOD (Linda Ronstadt) https://music.amazon.com/search/you%27re+no+good+linda+ronstadt

Steven T. Mnuchin, Secretary of the Treasury PIGGIES (Beatles) https://music.amazon.com/search/piggies

William Barr, Attorney General LAWYERS, GUNS AND MONEY (Warren Zevon) https://music.amazon.com/search/lawyers+guns+and+money+warren+zevon

Michael R. Pence, Vice-President MOTHER (John Lennon & Plastic Ono Band) https://music.amazon.com/search/mother+john+lennon and bonus track MOTHER (Pink Floyd) https://music.amazon.com/search/mother+pink+floyd

Donald J. Trump, President EVERYTHING IS BROKEN (Bob Dylan) https://music.amazon.com/albums/B00138J9X2/B00137XAUG?tab=CATALOG&ref=dm_wcp_albm_link_search_c

Let's Kill All the Editors

When she is old enough, Philadelphia Eagles receiver Marquise Goodwin will teach his daughter, Marae, to put family first. (from Bear Hugs and Bubbles: Why Some NFL Players Opted Out by Ben Shpigel--New York Times August 8, 2020)

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/08/sports/football/nfl-players-opt-out.html

Sorry, Ben Shpigel, the rest of your Times Sports Section cover story following that less than stellar lead sentence is terrific, informative, heart-wrenching, and well-written. Not your fault that editors are scarce and very busy, trying to keep up in a news cycle that’s moving much too fast with too many players, many of whom are skilled only in gaining social media hits.

Where have you gone William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White, our nation turns its undotted i’s and uncrossed t’s to you? The Cornell professor Strunk and his former student White didn’t collaborate per se on Elements of Style, the eponymous guide for putting pen to paper concisely and effectively. First issued by Strunk in 1918, revived by White in 1959 and believed to be dead in 2020, the brief guide was not without its critics. University of Edinburgh Professor of Linguistics Geoffrey Pullum apparently once said that “several generations of college students learned their grammar from the uninformed bossiness of Strunk and White, and the result is a nation of educated people who know they feel vaguely anxious and insecure whenever they write however or than me or was or which, but can't tell you why.”

I love you, Times. Love you too, Washington Post. You are all that stand between me and a future of Kanye West, Donald Trump, Jr. and Mark Zuckerberg. You still do have reporters covering every inch of the globe and editors too, even if they are overwhelmed, underpaid and endangered. You tell me daily, hourly if I venture online, all the ways we are going down for the count. In a world of WhatsApp, TikTok and Quibi, where phraseology is LOL and OMG, who needs elements of style, grammar and punctuation anyway? It’s or its, their or there, no more worries, and someday soon no more editors.

Come to the point. We will skim, we will peruse, we will get it I’m sure, that thing we used to refer to as the meaning, the gist, the crux. Even if we are left wondering from time to time what ever happened to that too young lady receiver for the Eagles.

NON-EDITOR’S NOTE: At some point between my reading of the hard copy of the Times this morning and my perusal of the online version tonight, the editor I was pining for woke up and that first sentence now reads: When his daughter, Marae, is old enough, Philadelphia Eagles receiver Marquise Goodwin will teach her to put family first. I may be onto something here. The hard copy of the Times as first draft, the online version as always ready for that editor to show up.

APPLICATION QUESTIONNAIRE FOR EMPLOYMENT AS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

The United States of America is an equal opportunity employer and has required completion of this application questionnaire since January 1, 2020 as a vital executive screening tool. It is estimated this form will take 1-2 minutes to complete.

1. Do you like dogs?

 Yes, proceed to Question 1A

 No, proceed to Question 2

1A. Which of the following would you prefer as the family dog?

 Spaniel  Labrador  Terrier  Cerberus

2. Do you like music?

 Yes, proceed to Question 2A

 No, proceed to Question 3

2A. Which of the following would you prefer to listen to?

 Classical  Jazz  Rock  Blues  Rap  Funeral Dirge

3. Do you like romantic movies?

 Yes, proceed to Question 3A

 No, proceed to Question 4

3A. Which of the following would you prefer to watch with a loved one?

 Say Anything

 Love Story

 Dirty Dancing

 An Officer and a Gentleman

 When Harry Met Sally

 Double Indemnity, Presumed Innocent, Rear Window or anything on the Lifetime Movie Network

4. Do you drink alcohol?

 Yes, proceed to Question 4A

 No, proceed to Question 5

4A. What is your favorite alcoholic drink?

 Rum and Coke  Martini  Whiskey Sour  Wine  Beer  Bloody Mary or Megyn

5. Do you enjoy yoga?

 Yes, proceed to Question 5A

 No, proceed to Question 6

5A. What is your favorite yoga pose?

 Cat Pose  Downward Facing Dog  Tree Pose  Locust or other Plague

6. Check the most accurate completion of the following: I believe Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa:

 Is smiling

 Is sorrowful

 Is someone I’m unfamiliar with

 Is looking to bed me and only me

7. Check every pickup line you’ve used to date:

 I’m rich and that should be enough for you.

 See these huge hands, draw your own conclusions.

 Follow my lead tonight and you will be overcome.

 As president, I would build a wall to keep out everyone but you.

8. Have you seen the movie Titanic?

 Yes, proceed to Question 8A

 No, proceed to Question 9

8A. Your favorite Titanic character was:

 Rose because she was willing to sacrifice for love.

 Jack because he was willing to sacrifice for love.

 Cal because he was willing to sacrifice everyone else.

9. At your bedside you keep a copy of:

 Bible  Goodnight Moon  War and Peace  Speak Loudly and Be A Big Dick

10. If you could have dinner with one American historical figure you would dine:

 With Abraham Lincoln

 With Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

 With Nikola Tesla

 With Lou Gehrig

 With Jonas Salk

 Alone

11. Which statement best matches your feelings?

 The Republican Party is nothing but a front for the wealthy and the Russians.

 The Democratic Party is nothing but a bunch of kumbaya peaceniks coming for your guns.

 The Socialist Party is nothing but a bunch of losers who’ve never known the joy of firing someone.

 The television program Party of Five had four too many lead characters.

 I am the life of the party.

12. Your most effective phrase to confuse fact with fiction is:

 I have a bridge in Brooklyn….

 A lot of people are saying that….

 I have the best words….

 In Texas and in Florida, we get an A+. I think we’ve done just as good in Puerto Rico….

13. You feel that the greatest threat facing America is:

 Climate change

 Global terrorism

 Exploding inequality

 Viral pandemic(s)

 A divided nation

 Support for my candidacy

Dear Diary

I always advise young people who want to write to keep a journal. I had one once and just located it as we continue to curate our stuff. Pictured below, it was given to me in March 1968 by my sister after she received it at a friend's Sweet Sixteen. The 13 year-old me made exactly one entry and that was it, the end of my diary writing (which is probably a good thing because three days later the world was going to get even crazier with the horrific assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.). But the best part is what my 12 year-old daughter wrote in it thirty years later that I’m only seeing now.

April 1, 1968 Dear Diary, it was a rain to shine day. Got 86 on Lit Test. I almost won $5.50 on WMCA April Fool’s contest. I played baseball. We got clobbered 20-10. I’m gonna start playin’ hardball from now on. Look out world. I’m not really nervous about my upcoming bar mitzvah. It should be pretty good. Peter

P.S We’ve just stoppped the bombing & President Johnson announced he won’t run again.

May 9, 1998 Hi Dad, this is your DAUGHTER JULIA. I repeat, Julia. Now now don’t be frightened. It is now 1998. You are 43 YEARS OLD. You had A NICE BAR-MITZVAH AND WENT TO CORNELL & HARVARD. A great many things have been invented since you wrote in this diary. (By the way, why didn’t you write in it more? You’re obviously not much of a diarist, even though you are now a WRITER. Yes, a WRITER and a LAWYER.) Cellular phones, MTV, computers. The inventions are endless. Okay, you married a beautiful smart woman currently in the college business (professor). Her name is JANET. She gave birth to me, 12 years old now, and GREGORY, 8. Yes, we are YOUR BABIES. I hope this is not too overwhelming, DAD, but I felt the need to inform you. Bye-bye now, Your Daughter JULIA

Things can only get….

When Michael Cimino directed Heaven’s Gate in 1980, did he know Howard the Duck was just around the corner with Gigli still to be green-lighted two decades later?

When the Philadelphia Athletics lost 117 games (out of 153) in 1916, could they have imagined that a slightly longer season and Casey Stengel’s 1962 Mets losing 120 (out of 160) would drop them down a line in the baseball loser record books?

In 1978 when Henry Ford II threw Chrysler’s future savior and automotive industry guru Lee Iacocca out of Ford Motors, could he suspect that John Sculley would come along to throw founder and future world-changer Steve Jobs out of Apple Computer in 1985?

And when the Boston Red Sox owner Harry Frazee traded Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees in early 1920 for $100,000 in production money for the ill-fated musical No, No, Nanette, did he know that there would be….no wait, there actually never was a worse trade that that one (other than the $24 for Manhattan deal that predated).

So when George W. Bush, interviewed in connection with the 2013 opening of his presidential library, declared that “I did what I did and ultimately history will judge,” did he have some inside information that the current occupant would trounce his younger brother and end up making history the easiest grader in…well…history? https://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/george-w-bush-usa-today-interview-presidential-library-090417

So, at this point, in the midst of the second worst pandemic this country has ever experienced (and you know the rest of the depressing story of the past three plus years), with Lennon and McCartney’s Getting Better from 1967 not particularly resonating, maybe it’s Howard Jones circa 1985 who sounds more on point.

And do you feel scared? I do. But I won’t stop and falter. And if we threw it all away? Things can only get better. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa………

Things Can Only Get Better - Howard Jones

Cost Cuts Have Arrived

When I opined about “Cost Cuts” in sports many years ago—see tab below—I had no idea we would perhaps get there so soon. In fact, the first season of the Esports Simulation Football League actually was during 2013. https://simulationfl.net/

There it was yesterday, on my television set, as Season 15 got underway, fictional teams and fictional fans with real people behind controllers. A presentation ostensibly not just for the participants but for other viewers hungry for sports. I didn’t stay long—I don’t even like live football with real players and fans (and collisions and CTE of course). But with all of the hassle and expense of attending a live game, now coupled with pandemic impossibility and fan-free basketball and baseball, is this how it’s going to be?

Undercover Queen

The pandemic has us all watching a little more television than we used to. When I’m not catching up on missed episodes of Barnaby Jones and Cannon from the 1970s, I have made some time to check in with the always oblivious chief executives and always suffering employees of Undercover Boss. In that first February 2010 episode, in the throes of unprecedented economic turbulence, the head of Waste Management, Inc. went into the field to see what it was really like to work at the company. Ten seasons, more than one hundred episodes and a couple of Emmy Awards later, we have the answers—-it sucks to work at Waste Management and everywhere else. But if you’re lucky enough to be one of the employees asked to train the undercover executive taking a turn at the drive-through window or the assembly line, you get to tell him or her up close and personal of your student loan debt, disabled daughter, failing kidneys, drug-dependent father, two other jobs, and loyalty to the company. The upshot? You’ll probably get the student loan paid off, forty thousand dollars to boot, and an opportunity to share tears with someone whose annual income is likely a few hundred times greater than yours. So who am I to worry about the other thousands of employees not getting any help from the newly enlightened and benevolent head honchos?

Earlier today I was soaking up the 2013 rerun revelations of the CEO of Donatos Pizza of Columbus, Ohio when my wife strolled by. “I hate that show,” she told me with no hesitation. “They lift up four people an episode and everyone else gets to rot forever. Reminds me so much of Queen For A Day.”

Leave it to my wife to make that connection. Queen For A Day: The Cinderella Show ran on radio, then television, for twenty years. Featuring kindly, mustached star host Jack Bailey interviewing four women vying for the crown and the granting of their index card wish for a refrigerator, dehumidifier, electric blankets, upstairs heating, clothing for fifteen siblings, a bed for a paralyzed brother---almost always amidst desperation laid bare and the tears that go with it. (And once, a vacation, for a woman who had lost her two handicapped children and both of her parents recently.) One crown, one winner, one wish granted. Chosen by an applause meter tuned to the almost exclusively female audience at Hollywood’s Moulin Rouge Dinner Theatre charged with this awesome responsibility, all funded by Anacin, Colgate Dental Cream, Old Gold Cigarettes, Ex-Lax, Hartz Mountain Cat Yummies, and countless others over the years. It hasn’t made it to classic rerun status yet but some video excerpts are all over the internet, as painful to watch now as my wife remembered.

Desperate circumstances and the promise of a savior, be it undercover or by way of a temporary robe and crown, have always made good television ratings, if not necessarily good television or good policy.

Trickling on down the road

Wow, if you haven’t taken a look at the New York Times Editorial Board’s collection of 16 pages of essays from last weekend detailing what’s wrong with America and how to right the ship, run, don’t walk, to do so now at the link at the bottom of the page. It’s a thoughtful and honest 16 pages of experts on proper taxation, civil rights, banking, labor, healthcare, and more. I would have simply recommended voting the bums out on November 3 but of course it’s not that simple. These are systemic problems decades, and in some respects, centuries in the making.

One article in particular resonated with me, calling for a wholesale revision of the duties of corporations from only stockholders to a fair mix of stockholders, employees and community. Large multi-national corporations dominate and if they can build shared prosperity into their culture everyone will truly benefit. This first article recalls prominent corporate attorney Lewis Powell’s 1971 memo written for the US Chamber of Commerce, which listed critical “threats including Ralph Nader’s campaign for consumer safety regulations, the rise of the environmental movment and the expansion of social welfare programs”, inspiring Joseph Coors to create the conservative Heritage Foundation. As a result a company like GE that had boasted in 1953 about its payments of taxes and to suppliers, employees and longterm research initiatives was touting forty years later its short-term profits, stock buybacks and employee layoffs.

The right and the truly wealthy and powerful it has always represented and cared solely about will always seek to divide “the people” over any issue they can come up with, or use cheap labels like socialist or radical in lieu of actual discussion and change to skew the message and the history away from the truth. The result is that generation after generation consistently vote against self-interest; workers and the middle class struggle; and the wealthy and powerful look more and more like the manic antagonists of a Dickens novel instead of admired leaders in search of the common good that somewhere in their psyches they just might find more rewarding.

No doubt there are flaws and problematic positions in everyone the Democratic Party has put forward in recent memory but they all share a recognition that there is something rotten in the State of Denmark on this side of the Atlantic Ocean and are committed to finding a solution. (Editor’s Note to President Trump: This writer may not be referring to the actual Scandinavian country known as Denmark.) So next time someone tells you this is nothing but class warfare, remember Lewis Powell’s words and know that it always has been, long before the trickle down was shown to be little trickle and lots of down.

Schmuck.com

Money is the bottom line, always has been. Maybe it didn’t seem that way before Reagan, before Gordon Gekko, before Milken and Boesky and Icahn and Madoff, before our current I’m a billionaire many times over president, before them all. Way back when I was younger, young even, and people were dancing in the mud and pay per view was a quarter in Times Square and not a hundred bucks for the WWE in the living room.

I have a home office. There is no coffee clutch, no elevator interaction, no lunchtime banter with associates in the park. Just the occasional overnight mail deliveryman and two other friends with home offices in different states with whom I share daily complaints via phone or email.

Many years ago, I can assure you that our whining had nothing to do with money, but it does now. For the past two plus decades, like much of the country, we have had a now rancid fascination with the stock market. All day long, the 1, 2, 3, and 4 letter symbols flash by at the bottom of our screens. (Do they move left to right or right to left?) A hypnotic perpetual motion machine that would probably serve well as an improved eye chart if the entire country’s financial future and mood were not so wrapped up in it. My two friends and I are not alone, far from it. We see the true believers at Schwab and Fidelity and we hear the conversations behind the delicatessen counter. On a good market day, I chuckle; on other days, I cringe and depart for the pizzeria next door where the talk is all cheese and Yankees baseball.

FB…INTC…AAPL…AMZN…NFLX…

After awhile, even an amateur like me gets to know many of the companies behind the letters. I get to hear so many things about these companies that I never thought would enter my consciousness. Revenues, earnings, growth targets, P/E multiples. I even typically get a glimpse of the façade of their headquarters, often an imposing building in some suburban community that had been wheat stalks and dirt roads until the given symbol arrived in town. How did I ever get to care about a single one of them?

I learn the terminology. Earnings surprises. Double dipping. On the heels of. All-time high. Lots of stock for sale. Beat the street. Economic headwinds.

I learn the personalities and they almost seem like friends. Jim Kramer, Joe Kernen, David Faber, Ron Insana, Bob Pisani, Maria Bartiromo, Liz Claman, Sue Herrera, Michelle Cabruso Cabrera. The same guests, spaced one to three months apart, saying much the same things. The bulls who seem to be on less often when the market is tanking. The bears who are always on when the sky seems to be the limit. Occasionally, I turn proactive and switch to Bloomberg or the Wall Street report on public television. Let’s face it, it’s everywhere.

Would we rather work out the problems of the customers on the other end of the line over the next three months, do actual work that is, or hit a few keys and pray? Trouble is that our prayers have been answered only in lost dollars and lost time.

Which brings me to the real point here. Please do not think me paranoid, self-absorbed, or some mutant disciple of Jim Carrey’s Truman, but not too long ago I discovered www.schmuck.com and learned that my two friends and I are the source. Whatever we elect to do in the stock market---be it buy a hundred shares of Verizon, buy or sell an option call on IBM, flee from a virus that’s ending the world, change our portfolio allocation to more or less cash, increase our exposure to companies overseas, ignore a virus that’s creating tremendous opportunity---is carefully logged, organized, chronicled, digitized, analyzed, and broadcast. All subscribers to www.schmuck.com get instant, real-time access to our financial moves. No wonder that the market takes only minutes, sometimes just seconds, to react. When my trio of home office lonelies buy, our chosen securities are sent spiraling downward, often out of control, like a rollercoaster unhinged from its tracking. And when we opt to sell, the bandwidth explodes with buy orders as word spreads to Des Moines and Dubai.

We move markets, Steven Mnuchin, Larry Kudlow and Jerome Powell be damned.

It had gotten so bad for us that it appeared my friends and I would have to go cold turkey on the market and return to actual work. But then it hit me. There is an enormous opportunity here, a real ramp-up to roll out, or roll-out to ramp up, who knows, I’m still learning. Maybe even go public someday or private if that doesn’t work. Barron’s, CNBC, Forbes, Fortune, Bloomberg, Money, Kiplinger’s, and all the rest of you. We are available. All three of us. To give you our inclinations, our leanings, our thoughts, before we make the trades. Imagine knowing what the schmucks are going to do minutes, sometimes even hours, before they actually do it.

Imagine that.

DAYENU (It Would Have Been Enough)

Just a week after Passover 2020 ended and I’ve had some time to reflect on the familiar song chanted at the Seder table each year, celebrating what God did for the Jews in bringing them out of slavery in Egypt and into their faith and homeland. It is fifteen verses and refrains that go on for quite awhile as the hungry chant along, even hungrier by song’s conclusion. You may feel the same way as you read through the greatest hits of the self-labeled chosen one’s three plus years, anxious to get to the end. Or maybe you’d like four more years and some new verses. Celebration or dirge? I suppose it all depends on who’s singing the refrain.

If he would have just obsessed on Hillary and the election,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just sabotaged the Affordable Care Act,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just been a very stable genius,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just played golf two hundred days of his presidency,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just blown the budget on a Mexican wall,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just revoked clean water and flood prevention regulations and opened most of the country’s coastline to oil drilling,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just had the MyPillow guy at the White House during the pandemic to urge prayer,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just labeled the failure of Democrats to applaud his State of the Union as an act of treason,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just embraced Norway while referencing other shithole countries,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just mused about injecting disinfectant to combat coronavirus,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just coined derogatory middle school nicknames for his opponents,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just admired the Chinese leader for becoming president for life and thought that might be something for America to consider,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just hired Stephen Miller, Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn, William Barr, Tom Price, John Bolton, Betsy DeVos, Scott Pruitt, Ryan Zinke, Rudy Guiliani, Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, Kellyanne Conway, Kayleigh McEnany, Sebastian Gorka, Peter Navarro, and Kirstjen Nielsen,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just signed a massive tax giveaway to the nation’s wealthiest,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just instructed White House staff to ignore subpoenas from the United States House of Representatives,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just thrown the paper towel rolls in Puerto Rico,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just praised Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, Rodrigo Duterte,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just labeled the Mueller Report as a witch hunt,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just separated families and caged children,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just mocked Christine Blasey Ford and lauded Brett Kavanaugh,

it would have been enough,

If he had just canceled the White House subscriptions to the New York Times and Washington Post,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just labeled his impeachment another witch hunt,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just used his not-for-profit charitable foundation for his election campaign,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just taken no responsibility at all for the coronavirus pandemic,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just suggested an electrified moat filled with alligators along the southern border with Mexico and shooting migrants in the legs,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just shut down the federal government for five weeks,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just condemned Colin Kaepernick for taking a knee for social justice and alluded to the good people on both sides at Charlottesville,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just added five trillion dollars to the national debt,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just pardoned Arizona’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the US Army’s Michael Chase Behenna,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just switched from despising North Korea’s Rocket Man to befriending him to despising him again,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just unnerved and alienated NATO and the United Nations,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just known more than the generals and the doctors,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just skewed the federal courts for the next generation or two,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just questioned the late Senator John McCain’s heroism,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just divided America along racial and economic lines while managing to unite Denmark against an American takeover of Greenland,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just given the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Russ Limbaugh,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just sought to defund Planned Parenthood,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just dismissed anyone not named Hannity or Dobbs as Fake News,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just fired Sally Yates, James Comey, Andrew McCabe,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just encouraged fracking, vitiated the EPA, dropped out of the Paris Accord, and denied climate change,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just blamed everything going wrong on his predecessor,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just rolled back common sense gun control restrictions,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just made a mockery of the Constitution,

it would have been enough,

If he would have just told the truth once in a blue moon,

that….would have been too much.

ACRONYM TO FOLLOW

Five years ago I noticed that marketers had created a day for everything and I wrote an aspirational poem ACRONYM TO FOLLOW which appears below. Today as I look back at the poem, I note what a disparate collection of celebrations share April 2, 2020 for today is simultaneously NATIONAL FERRET DAY, NATIONAL PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY DAY, NATIONAL RECONCILIATION DAY, WORLD AUTISM AWARENESS DAY, and NATIONAL BURRITO DAY.

Finally

Our Day has come

There’s a Day for everything

For doughnuts, siblings, eight track tapes

Grilled cheese, daughters and sons to work

Encouragement, Alzheimer’s

Coffee, math, chewing gum

Blasphemy, yo-yos

And now finally

One for us

Truly a Day to celebrate

National

Don’t Shoot An Unarmed Brother

Doctor King Not Seeing Progress

George Orwell Laughing

It Is So About the Money

Enough Is Never Enough

Can You Spare A Dime

Or More Time

Freedom Isn’t Free

But It Is Complicated

Day

Acronym to follow