I paid $7.13 a gallon.

Actually, the sticker price was $7.15, but I got a two cent discount for using my 76 card. I might have gotten a few cents more if I used the app, but every time I’ve tried there’s been a hurdle I couldn’t jump. Like my PIN. I mean really, how many PINs/passwords am I supposed to remember? I contemplated looking up the requirements earlier in the day, but I was so damn busy, wasn’t my time worth something?

I used to go to the Shell on Van Nuys. It’s one block north of Ventura. I was always in that neighborhood now and again pre-Covid. But now I don’t go anywhere, other than at night to hike. So to go to Van Nuys is a time-consuming and now expensive schlepp. Yes, I’m willing to drive there, but with gas so expensive it’s gonna cost me $3.50 or so to do so! And my tank isn’t that big, how much can I save?

I buy my gas in Bel-Air.

I know, you’re chuckling now. But ever since my friend Andy was involved in a holdup at a gas station on La Cienega Boulevard, during broad daylight, I’ve been wary of stopping at gas stations in sketchy neighborhoods. Saving a few cents is not worth my life.

And no, I’m not ignorant, I don’t stop at those insulting stations where gas is a buck or more more, like the 76 in Beverly Hills. I mean I’ll overpay for my safety, but I won’t be ripped-off.

My car uses premium. I know, I know, you say that’s all B.S. But not in my machine, it needs the octane.

So I’m paying a bit more.

Then again, I don’t use that many gallons.

And brand is important too.

So I was driving east on Sunset and I saw the Chevron station at Barrington was charging $6.99. I laughed, I was not going to stop there, it always charged a few cents more. And it’s a weird station, the lights are very low, maybe so the luminaries in the neighborhood don’t have to wear their sunglasses at night.

And I’m off of Chevron.

Back when I owned my 2002… Leaded gas started to disappear. Starting in 1975, cars used unleaded. But mine was a ’74. And ultimately the only company that sold leaded was 76, so that was my preferred brand, ergo the card. Yes, I’ve got gas credit cards, a relic of the eighties, or maybe the influence of my father, this was before the points extravaganza. To tell you the truth, I never use points. I’ve got no idea how many I have. Even with the airlines. I’m my mother’s son, she refused to clip coupons and… Oh, did I tell you about earning a free trip to Paris using Sprint? This was when it was a long distance company, before it even sold cellphones. You had to dial extra digits. And I got a letter and was intrigued…but what would I do once I got there? That wouldn’t be free.

So I’ve got 76, Chevron and Shell credit cards. I used to have Mobil, but the only Mobil I pass by is the one at Olympic and Westwood, and it’s one of those rip-off stations. You can tell them, because they’re always empty. There used to be three gas stations at that intersection, now there’s only one. The strip center with the Poquito Mas used to be the BMW dealership, and before that it was a Chevron station. And across the street, where the Bigg Chill is, the best frozen yogurt on the westside? That used to be a gas station too, but so much time has passed I no longer remember which brand.

So, after my 2002 got totaled, I ultimately favored Shell. My 325e got just a little more oomph. I’d mash the accelerator and the car would jump a bit.

But then I ran out of money and started using ARCO. I could put in three bucks and drive for a week. That was back in the nineties. But Arco dried out the rubber in my fuel pump so I swore off it and went back to the brands that took credit cards, yes, ARCO, Atlantic Richfield, was cheap, because they gave up credit.

So I’m at the exit by Sepulveda, having just been on the 405 for less than a mile. I’m my father’s son here too, he’d go out of his way to get on the freeway, although it was called the “Turnpike” back in Connecticut, and at the time it wasn’t free.

And I’m sitting at the light, which is very long, and I’m looking at the prices, the Chevron and the 76 stations are across the street from each other. And they were both over seven bucks! I couldn’t believe it, six was one thing, SEVEN? What, are we living in Europe? I wish we were, then everybody would think about the size of the automobile they drove, its fuel efficiency. Then again, SUVs have made inroads on the Continent, but electrics are now too.

So I’m sitting there contemplating this. The Chevron is $7.09, but the 76 is $7.15, and usually they’re the same damn price, but every once in a while one is less expensive than the other, but not by much.

Yes, in Bel-Air I feel safe. Especially at eleven o’clock at night, when I was stopping.

And I pulled into the 76 station and it was a ghost town, and it normally isn’t at this time, there are always a few automobiles coming in and out. An Aston Martin SUV was filling up right in front of me a while back, and then this teenager came out of the mini-mart and got behind the wheel. That’s Los Angeles. A giant suburb where as Rod Stewart put it, people have a lot more money than sense.

Oh, I’ve got to back up. I couldn’t go to the Chevron station. Yes, I’ve experimented, multiple times, the gas there just isn’t good enough, there’s a problem with it. Is it at every Chevron station? I’m not sure, but I don’t want to risk it.

Here’s what happens. I’m driving up a hill, and the car starts to buck, like a bronco, like one of those mechanical bulls they have in bars. And it’s frightening, and only one time was it dangerous, but my main concern was…WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY CAR??

At some point you’ve got to call it quits, give up the ghost, crawl from the wreckage into a brand new car. I wasted too much money on my 325e before killing it, I don’t want to do that again. Especially now. You don’t want to be forced to buy a car now, during the chip shortage, you’re gonna pay a fortune.

But it turned out to be the gas!

No problem at 76 or Shell, but terrible problem with Chevron. So I’m not gonna buy Chevron unless my car is on E and there’s no other station for miles.

And as I look at the price on the pump at the 76 I’m wondering whether I should bolt for the Shell on Van Nuys. I mean I’m the only car in the station. But then a twentysomething in a brand new SUV pulls up and I decide to go for it.

So I inserted my card, and I got that two cent savings, WHOOPEE!

Oh, that’s another reason to have a gas credit card. For a while, at that Shell station on Van Nuys, you didn’t have to push any buttons after inserting it, and this was a huge advantage, at least during the early days of Covid-19 when we were all panicking.

And I’m kicking myself for not figuring out how to use the app, but I’m here. Gas… Used to be you didn’t think about it. But now you go somewhere and you realize it’s a four dollar trip. Like I said, driving out of your way to save a few cents is no longer worth it.

So as I’m washing my windows, the pump pops to a stop. And I see that I owe $84 and change. Yes, I have a small tank. And I always remember my father saying there was dirt at the bottom of the tank and not to run it too low and if you haven’t lived in the east you don’t know all these issues…not only dirt, but if you don’t have the tank at least half full you risk the gas freezing during a cold spell. You learn to put anti-freeze into the gas, and to keep the tank topped-off. Which is all to say I used to fill up like my father, when the needle dropped below halfway, but that’s too much of a pain, but when it hits three-quarters, I fill.

$84. That’s essentially a C-note. Does anybody even use that term anymore? I got $600 cash to go out of town fifteen months ago, and then I couldn’t, because the vaccine didn’t work, and that same $600 is still sitting in my wallet. We live in a cashless society. Oh, they’re forcing businesses to keep taking cash because poor people don’t have credit cards. (Can you use the word “poor” anymore, do you have to say “financially-challenged”?) But still, there are so many places that will not accept cash.

I mean a hundred dollars, that still means something to me. But after filling up Friday night I realized my money perception was way off. I know someone who made 90k only a couple of years out of college, and was not a professional or in banking. And a pastrami sandwich is twenty bucks and…I realized I’ve got no idea what a dollar is worth.

But my car is small, I only needed eleven gallons. What if you were one of those people who purchased a big SUV because of social pressure, sat high and had an inherently less safe driving experience just so you could look cool?

Oh, that’s another dirty little secret, the rich don’t care about gas prices. If you’re making five hundred thousand dollars or more, what do you care about the price of gas?

But what if you have to drive to work, like everybody in Southern California, commuting is necessary, no one lives close to their job. Then, through no fault of your own, even if you drove a relatively fuel-efficient car, you were burning bucks.

I mean I don’t have to leave the house. I’m driving less than ever. The price shocked me, but I could cope. But what if you’re driving your kids around or..?

And I’m mad at the oil companies, booking record profits. But those who think it’s all Biden’s fault…

Someone tweeted FDR today. This is what they said:

“‘Democracy has disappeared in several other great nations, not because the people of those nations disliked democracy, but because they had grown tired of unemployment and insecurity, of seeing their children hungry while they sat helpless in the face of government confusion and government weakness through lack of leadership,’ he said in a 1938 radio address. ‘Finally, in desperation, they chose to sacrifice liberty in the hope of getting something to eat'”

The authoritarians make the trains run on time, and then your vaunted freedom is down the tubes.

It’s like the entire world didn’t think beyond tomorrow. Let two plants in Asia make all the chips, after all it’s less expensive than making them here. And the electric car and climate change naysayers say it’s all a hoax, fossil fuels forever!

And having lived through two plus years of Covid-19, it’s been made clear that the government doesn’t have that much power, and even worse you can’t make people do what they don’t want to. We’re on the verge of chaos 24/7. And I always knew you couldn’t live in Northern Idaho, not as a Jew, yesterday confirmed it.

So I’m glad I live in SoCal. And I don’t mind paying gas taxes for clean air. Bad air shortens lives, not only views.

But man, I feel your frustration.

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3zwxmil

YouTube: https://bit.ly/3mCvsoJ

1

I wanted to hear this Gerry Rafferty song. But I wasn’t exactly sure of the title or what album it was on. And I was just about to start driving and I gave up, I just put Rafferty on shuffle. And everything sounded right.

“Baker Street” was a huge hit in 1978, on both AM and FM, you’d hear it everywhere you went, it was a summer song, back before we even spoke of a song of the summer, after all what could compete with “Satisfaction” or “Summer in the City.” And the sound of it was so pleasing the lyrics didn’t matter, and after all I was only 25, what did I really know about disillusionment, even though I thought I knew everything. But years later, “Baker Street” started to reveal itself. And now, the older I get the more insight I get. I was cruising down Sunset, going west towards the beach, just like in that Bryan Ferry song, just past the light at Barrington, by where the school is and it was like my world got larger, I could finally see the full panoply of life. (Don’t hassle me on the word choice, I had a self-satisfied criminal law professor who pronounced it like “monopoly,” over and over, and as a result the word has stuck in my head forevermore.)

But this isn’t about “Baker Street.”

I’d invested in the first Stealer’s Wheel album because I wanted to own “Stuck in the Middle With You,” to be able to hear it whenever I wanted, funny how a song infects you with its magic that way, and the reviews were good. I played it multiple times, but the record never revealed itself to me. As for the second LP? Once bitten, twice shy. But “Baker Street’ was so infectious, so great that I took a dive on “City to City,” after all I was already invested in Gerry Rafferty’s career.

“Stealin’ Time” is probably the second best song on “City to City.” Not that that was a single, the other cut that got radio play was “Right Down the Line.” Which was good, but nothing could be in the category of “Baker Street,” upon reflection it’s one of the great records of ALL TIME! Something the label said wasn’t a single, that fit no category, still fits no category, that’s sui generis and survives to this day.

And there’s one other really good song on “City to City,” “Home and Dry.” But honestly the album was not one of my favorites, I kept on playing it but these are the only tracks that revealed themselves to me.

But I bought the follow-up, “Night Owl,” because that’s what you did, and it wasn’t as good as “City to City.”

I might have bought “Snakes and Ladders,” I think so, I’d have to check my vinyl in storage to be sure, but now I’m listening on Spotify and I definitely did own it, not that I loved it, and it meant nothing in America.

And then came 1982’s “Sleepwalking,” which I definitely wouldn’t have bought, but I found a promo in the bin, one of the advantages of living in Los Angeles, and it was a complete return to form, but by this time no one in America was paying attention, cared.

The killer, the song I was looking for that night, which I wasn’t absolutely sure of, is the closer, “As Wise as a Serpent.”

“Now you once asked me why we can’t communicate

But it doesn’t always pay to tell the truth

If I told you right now you’d only run away, run away, run away home”

The tone is so personal, so introspective, so irresistible, you can’t help but let it penetrate you. Do you tell the truth in relationships? It’s one thing to lie, quite another to lie by omission.

“So we sit in empty rooms and dream our lives away”

At some point it gets too late, possibly a very few can lift themselves up by their bootstraps, but somewhere along the line you realize you missed it, the boat has passed you by, you thought opportunities would present themselves, you didn’t know how to make them.

2

So I’m enjoying listening to Gerry Rafferty so much I don’t want to lose the mood, so I continue listening after I start my hike, and that’s when I hear “Sleepwalking”.

“Sleep won’t come so you lie there waitin’, lookin’ at the silvery light

Tellin’ yourself there’s nothin’ new, so whatever gets you through the night

Meanwhile back in the music business the beat goes on and on

I sell my soul to the company man when there’s nothin’ else to lean upon”

These lines I could never forget, about selling his soul to the company man, Rafferty had a long history of trouble with labels, but back then there was a clear dividing line between the man and the act, between the company and the creator, there was no Don Passman book, most musicians were in the dark.

But it’s not only the lyrics of “Sleepwalking,” it’s the sound, the groove.

You see after having no success Rafferty switched producers and sounds, he used synths, but subtly, it wasn’t so much that his music was modernized as much as it was extracted from where it had been, put into a new context so the songs could finally shine.

So I’m on one of the hardest parts of the trail, it’s relatively steep, and “Sleepwalking” is keeping me going, putting one foot in front of the other, and I can’t turn it off, I’m shimmying as I go forward, I’m elated, but finally the trail flattens and I let my phone slip to the next song.

3

Now the funny thing is in my memory “Sleepwalking” was the radio track, the hit, but in truth I had it exactly backwards, it was “Get It Right Next Time” that penetrated the airwaves. I felt like I was having a revelation, an insight no one else had had, but this was untrue. Or was it?

“Out on the street I was talking to a man

He said there’s so much of this life of mine that I don’t understand”

I must have played the track three, maybe four times, before the lyrics started revealing themselves to me, and in truth it was the last verse that resonated. But it was like a bolt of lightning, I had to go back to the top to see what this song had to say.

The older you get, the less you know. Oh, you know more than the youngsters, but you’re aware of all you don’t know. Your perspective changes, you can see the entire world, it’s vast, you can never know it all. And although life is a personal journey, you interact with others, do you know enough to do so?

“You shouldn’t worry I said, that ain’t no crime

‘Cause if you get it wrong, you’ll get it right next time, next time”

I hate this kind of optimism. But since I’d understood the last verse first, I knew what Rafferty was talking about. Which was going forward, not getting stuck in the past, so worried about making a mistake that you were paralyzed, that you couldn’t go forward.

“You need direction, yeah, you need a name

When you’re standing in the crossroads every highway looks the same

After a while you can recognize the signs

So if you get it wrong, you’ll get it right next time, next time”

You do, need direction that is. And there are plenty of people who will tell you where to go and you risk sacrificing your life to them, not doing what you want to do. But life is so confusing, which way should you go? It’s unclear, but as you forage it comes clear, you go down a few alleys and then you realize you could never stay there, you belong somewhere else. You gain this inner confidence.

“Life is a liar, yeah, life is a cheat

It’ll lead you on and pull the ground from underneath your feet

No use complaining, don’t you worry, don’t you whine

‘Cause if you get it wrong, you’ll get it right next time, next time”

That’s what you don’t know, that you ultimately can’t believe, no one is in charge, there is no scorecard, life is not fair, it just is. Meanwhile, time goes by, you make mistakes, there are fewer grains of sand in the hourglass. But all you can do is keep on keepin’ on. And you’d be surprised how many people do not. They experience a couple of breakups and they’re resistant to being in a relationship again. Oh, they say they want to be but they expect their significant other to drop from the sky, in love with them from the outset. You need a bit of optimism, a bit of get up and go, to proceed. And once you realize there is no hierarchy, that in truth no one cares about you, that there is no pecking order, you live and you die, no one will be remembered, you start to move forward, although sometimes this doesn’t happen until you’re near retirement age, but it’s never too late.

4

My car was close to new. I’m more worried about the interior, the mechanics as opposed to the exterior, and therefore I don’t wash my automobile as often as I should, but when I do I want it to be clean, to shine sans gross imperfections.

So I’m doing the same routine, driving to hike. But a buddy is with me. And I was feeling self-conscious, I wanted to go further up before I pulled a U-turn, but I didn’t, and my car rubbed up against some bushes, no big deal, right? But there was this sound. And after I parked I went out to inspect. This bush had been trimmed back, these were not flexible fronds, the limbs of this bush were rigidly stiff, and they scratched my car from stem to stern, from the front panel all the way past the doors to the rear panel. Not that I could see it so well, it was nearly dark, but the next morning… Ugh.

So I went to the dealership, asked for an estimate, figuring they’d laugh at me, tell me it wasn’t that big a problem, that the scratches could be buffed out. But after waiting for about twenty minutes they came back with an estimate for THOUSANDS!

Yeah, those scratches were pretty deep. But they were not down to the metal skin. They were not horrific. I was not going to lay down these kinds of dollars, I was disillusioned and defeated.

And then two days later I went to my shrink and told him the story. I knew he wouldn’t give me any sympathy, but I was looking for understanding.

And he said unless you color outside the line sometimes you never know where the line is.

Some people spend their entire lives worried about crossing the line, so they stay far away. Others test the limits, and realize they’re much further out than they thought. And in truth in so many ways I play it safe, I don’t want any destruction, I don’t want to metabolize the injury. But the shrink liberated me, I saw the possibilities, the OPPORTUNITIES!

“You got to grow, you got to learn by your mistakes

You got to die a little every day just to try to stay awake

When you believe there’s no mountain you can climb

And if you get it wrong, you’ll get it right next time, next time

Next time, hmm”

This is the final verse, this is the one that resonated with me. It’s true, you’ve got to make mistakes, otherwise you don’t know where the line is. And it hurts to get it wrong, but it’s the only way to progress, to reach the destination, where you want to go. You can be fearful and get somewhere, but all the way? That’s something different.

5

I know Gerry Rafferty died of alcoholism.

What I didn’t know was the story was much worse than I thought. Enough years have gone by since the last time I researched him in depth that the story’s been fleshed out, there’s much more information. Rafferty was not only an alcoholic, at the end he moved from hotel to hotel, causing so much damage, leaving the rooms so soiled that the help, the management, had never seen anything like it. It was ugly.

There was also a story how Raphael Ravenscroft said he improvised the famous sax riff in “Baker Street.” Rafferty said he did not. He said he sang the line to Ravenscroft, that it was in the original demo. And lo and behold, thanks to the magic of the internet, the “Baker Street” demo is online!

And the stunning thing is it is a demo. Today’s demos are so polished they could be released as finished versions. But not this demo, it’s a rough recording, but more than just an acoustic rendition. But the riff, that Raphael Ravenscroft built an entire career on, got a record deal out of, it’s right there: https://bit.ly/39fgLVI

But what stunned me was not that Rafferty had written the riff, but his VOICE!

Today nobody can sing, or that’s all they can do. Studio trickery rules. Effects. Auto-Tune. But in this demo Rafferty sounds EXACTLY THE SAME AS HE DOES ON RECORD!

It’s astounding, it’s not the kind of voice that wins a TV show, he’s not a belter, his voice is rich, it’s got character, a smoothness, yet it’s still rock and roll. I was completely wowed, still am.

“You used to think that it was so easy

You used to say that it was so easy

But you’re tryin’, you’re tryin’ now

Another year and then you’ll be happy

Just one more year and then you’ll be happy

But you’re cryin’, you’re cryin’ now”

Delayed gratification. It’s the key to any achievement in this life, but most people can’t wait, can’t pay their dues, they’ve got to forgo education, they’ve got to start now, and then years later they realize the building blocks they missed, the experiences they lost.

Life is so hard, so damn hard. It’s hard to achieve one thing, never mind more. You put in years, and you still might not make it. Maybe you adjust your dream, but to make it all the way to the top, stardom in your world…man it’s nearly impossible. And relationships are hard too.

But you’ve got to be determined, you can lick your wounds for a while but then you’ve got to get back up, get back at it.

“But you know he’ll always keep movin’

You know he’s never gonna stop movin’

‘Cause he’s rollin’, he’s the rollin’ stone

And when you wake up, it’s a new mornin’

The sun is shinin’, it’s a new mornin’

You’re goin’, you’re goin’ home”

This is what it’s all about for a musician, they’ve got to keep movin’, they’re rolling stones. Once you pander to your fans, once you stop pushing the envelope, you may be rich, but you’re done.

Every day it’s a new morning, funny how that is. And if you get your head straight and the sun is shining you’re thrilled to be alive, all you can think about is the POSSIBILITIES!

That’s what we’re looking for from our musical heroes. Some help, some direction, from people who’ve been there and done that. We’re not going to get it from business people, false prophets, but unique individuals in pursuit of their personal truth. To the point when you hear their songs you’re inspired to pick a direction and march forward, aware you’re going to get it wrong…

But you’re gonna get it right next time!

“The Man Who Broke Capitalism: How Jack Welch Gutted the Heartland and Crushed the Soul of Corporate America—and How to Undo His Legacy”: https://amzn.to/3zw6BKQ

If everybody in America read this book there would be a revolution.

About fifteen years ago my dream died. You know, where the stars align and you become rich and famous. Because I realized there was no way I could do what I did and become rich. And by modern standards even entertainers are not rich. You can’t earn billions by singing.

Now you want to argue with me. Yes, there is Paul McCartney, but he started eons ago. As for Dr. Dre, he made his money on headphones. But I don’t want to go any deeper here, because this is just what the rulers of this country want, for the hoi polloi to be distracted with petty arguments.

My mother always told me I wasn’t the one. There was always someone smarter, more connected, who knew more. As for my father? He was so internalized from a rough upbringing that all he could do was rage. And then try to make up for it by being loving. He was an outsider, and knew it and owned it. If I was looking for instructions on how to be a man in society, they would not come from him. But he constantly poured out business advice, telling me to dig beneath the surface, for things were frequently not what they appeared to be, what everybody was telling you they were.

So I went to college in the dark ages, when the goal was to be a doctor or a lawyer, so you’d be set up for life, so your parents wouldn’t have to worry about you. I just read in the “Times” this morning that pay for public defenders is so bad they’ve got to take second jobs to make ends meet, never mind since Watergate lawyers have never been respected again. And although you read about MDs making beaucoup bucks, the truth is most are making a good living, far from seven figures, many not even mid six figures, working for the corporation, the paperwork will bury you otherwise. If you’ve got an independent practitioner, you’re one of the few.

So things started to change in the eighties, with Reagan. He’s another person who has to be torn down from his pedestal. This guy ruined the economy forever, single-handedly opened the door for income inequality. And Clinton, after losing traction after the ’94 election, stopped being progressive and endorsed right wing tropes, eliminating welfare benefits. And then the Supreme Court gave the presidency to Bush and it was all over.

Not that any of the foregoing people is that powerful. It’s the corporations that rule this world, and now they’re multinational, beholden to nobody. And their CEOs are seen as laudable titans.

Michael Eisner did a great job rescuing Disney from the doldrums, but was it worth a billion dollars? By time he exited the company he was its largest shareholder. How can that be? You go from being an employee to that big an owner?

You see executive salaries are way out of whack. And we can credit Jack Welch for that.

Jack Welch, the manager of the CENTURY! That’s what they called him. For meeting Wall Street analysts’ numbers year after year.

When I was in law school, my girlfriend’s father gave her a subscription to the “Wall Street Journal.” I saw this as a negative, because of its right wing politics. But as I read it I became more and more familiar with business. It’s a different paper now, the business coverage is often better in the “Times,” but if you read it on a regular basis you’ll get an idea of what is going on. Then you’ve got to connect the dots yourself.

So we’re in the go-go nineties, after the traction of the eighties, and this Welch guy is suddenly an icon and I look a little deeper and I say there is no way this can be true, this guy is obviously cooking the books. But what did I know? Isn’t that exactly what my parents told me, I was an inferior outsider looking in, sans all the facts, these people were GIANTS!

Well it turned out it was true. Now everybody knows. We can ask whether Welch literally cooked the books, as in outright fraud, but it’s clear that financial shenanigans were employed to meet Wall Street’s numbers, SO THE STOCKHOLDERS WOULD BE REWARDED!

Let me tell you how this worked, it’s not too hard. Welch invested heavily in finance. And then he would buy and sell stuff to make his numbers every quarter. Jeffrey Immelt, his successor, ultimately missed his numbers and his excuse was they couldn’t get the usual financial transactions done in the last two weeks of the quarter! I’m chuckling just writing this. People oftentimes reveal their bad behavior if you just let them talk long enough.

So, used to be corporations were a partnership with the public, the essence was its products, and the employees were seen as an asset.

But not under Neutron Jack.

First thing he did was fire employees. Not only causing them to lose their jobs, but decimating entire communities. This made the numbers look better. And when the numbers looked bad, he just bought stuff. You’d be stunned how CFOs can work the books. The recipe was simple: downsize, make deals and financialize. End result? GE stock kept going up and up. As for GE itself? It’s being broken up in the wake of Welch’s efforts. There’s no there there anymore, at least not much. And did I mention Welch made HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS in the process?

Let’s dig a little deeper.

Economist Milton Friedman said a corporation’s only obligation was to its shareholders, to make them money. So America became a casino, all the jobs were shipped overseas and the business of many of these companies was finance.

But it gets worse. These companies were making so much dough that they increased dividends and repurchased their shares to make their stock go ever higher. AND THIS IS STILL HAPPENING! That’s right, you cut until you create a cache of cash, and then you distribute it and buy back shares to make your stock go up AND YOU ARE HANDSOMELY COMPENSATED FOR THIS! You’re making money, but the corporation??

But it gets even worse than this, GE was seen as the bedrock of management skills, you wanted a GE titan in charge. So all these corporations brought in GE talent which then employed the exact same recipe. Can you say BOEING?? People died there, but Welch’s protégés ruined one company after another, while they made tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars in the process. Even Warren Buffett, the Oracle of Omaha, he was down with firings too, after all he’s an investor first and foremost!

In other words, just about every CEO who is praised, who struts around like a king, and they’re essentially all men, is a crook out for himself. Truly. As for knowing how to run a company? They know how to cook the books and make the stock price go up. The underlying company? WHO CARES! They ultimately get fired and get golden parachutes worth tens of millions of dollars on top of all that money they got paid while they were ruining the company!

Everybody inside knows the above. It’s a club, and as George Carlin said, you’re not in it. Prior to Welch CEOs were not making these outrageous salaries. But Jack convinced Wall Street the pay packages were worth it, after all, look how much money he made for them! Forget building, never mind sustaining the underlying company. One of the other things all these Welch acolytes do to save money is cut R&D, research and development, i.e. the longevity of the company.

It gets worse and worse. Welch fires 10% of the employees every year, resulting in a cutthroat worker environment. No one will take the time to help anybody else, they need to keep their numbers up, they can’t waste any effort.

And it’s not only Welch, how about Jeff Bezos and Howard Schultz? Things are so bad in America that workers are starting to unionize. Not only the uneducated laborers, but the college educated who can’t get a better job themselves, get on the corporate gravy train. And rather than embrace unions, Amazon and Starbucks fight them all the way, they don’t want to give up an iota of power. That’s right, the corporation rules and you’re a fan, after all, who else is there to believe in, musicians hawking perfume and clothing, trying to suck the tit of corporations which laugh at these “singers,” who don’t realize they’re the tools that are being used.

Rather than rebelling against corporations, people EMBRACE THEM! Get tattoos of them. And their leaders, who call themselves “rock stars,” are looked to for answers about anything and everything, tell us they know better, when in truth they’re clueless and helped cause the problems to begin with! Watch “Borgen,” politics is a professional game. You’ve got to negotiate for a result. Instead we’ve got bozos in Congress who believe stonewalling steers the country forward. Hell, they should close down for a week and watch the last season of “Borgen.”

Like I said, people on the inside know all this. But there’s never been a book that’s laid it all out, put it all together in such a damning way. One guy, Jack Welch, set in motion a transformation of society much bigger than the social issues discussed on TV, that too many Americans make their voting decisions upon, if they vote at all.

As for planning for the future? Just in time inventory programs made it so when the pandemic hit…there were no supplies. Yes, to cut costs, to increase the numbers, to make the stock go up, the corporate CEOs took everything off the books. Jobs were outsourced. Someone else built the parts, they held the inventory. Boeing stopped making almost all of its planes in-house and turned over manufacture to outside vendors. Why? Not because Boeing was doing a bad job, but to save money, to make the numbers look good, to make the stock go up, so the CEO could get ever richer! As for the problems this caused… Well, hundreds of people ultimately lost their lives, not that these execs are contrite when this happens. That was another one of Welch’s credos, fight back, don’t own it, it’s not your fault, if there’s even a problem to begin with!

But almost no one will read “The Man Who Broke Capitalism.” Because they don’t read books to begin with. Unless they’re genre tomes, romance, mystery, if that! Or self-help from these same guys who ruined the economy to begin with!

And “The Man Who Broke Capitalism” is not the easiest read, it’s far from tough, it’s highly readable, you’ve just got to be interested. And it’s not even that long.

And it doesn’t matter if you’re left or right, Democrat or Republican. This isn’t a political issue, other than the government letting these companies rape and pillage without even paying any taxes, barely regulated. Everybody is affected by what these companies do.

Be the first on your block. Read “The Man Who Broke Capitalism.” You won’t stop talking about it. We’ve got to start somewhere.

She’s selling the essence, not the penumbra.

A couple of years back I had dinner with John Dick, majordomo of the research company CivicScience. He puts out a weekly newsletter everybody loves, you can sign up here:

http://www2.civicscience.com/l/165381/2019-08-30/bjv6tb

CivicScience consults Fortune 500 companies and John was struggling with writing the newsletter, it was a chore. I told him to make it personal.

Then everything instantly changed. The story about his daughter saying “I love Dick!” was priceless. Also the one where he talked about a family tragedy. You see it’s about people. First and foremost. Want to have success, especially in the arts, MAKE IT PERSONAL!

Everybody can relate, everybody is imperfect, has warts. Once you testify everybody else does too, they’re just waiting for the signal to open up, especially guys.

A few years back I went on the Summit Series cruise. You can research it. And although Brad Gerstner of Altimeter Partners told me I had the best presentation of the weekend at a subsequent Summit event in Utah, the hit of the cruise was Esther Perel.

Everybody knows who Esther Perel is today. Because of her podcast and publications and… She’s the relationship guru. Trained relationship guru.

But this was before all that.

I had to go see her, she had to do a bonus talk because people were turned away from the scheduled one. Esther was relatable, she wasn’t dictatorial, she told it how it was, and it was very interesting.

This morning in the “New York Times” I saw a story about Logan Ury:

“Logan Ury Says You’re Dating All Wrong – From her Oakland commune, a dating coach has made a big business out of her data-driven approach to modern romance.: https://nyti.ms/3tsZpLI

A COMMUNE? You mean hippies in Oregon wearing overalls? Takes balls to live in a commune in the twenty first century. This I had to read.

And that’s when I found out Logan went to Harvard. Yes, growing up on the east coast that still means something to me. A person can go to Harvard and be socially awkward, have no practical sense, but they’ve got to be book smart, they’ve got to be able to read, understand and write. Those are the necessary criteria for admission. So was this the average dating coach?

Absolutely not.

She’s not the usual charlatan. You know, the person who hangs up a shingle whose main goal is to get rich. Like the clairvoyants preying on the hopeful. You see Logan’s approach is based on data, science. And she’s got a degree in psychology. This ticks a few boxes.

As for the commune, Ury says “Research shows that people are happiest when they live in groups.”

Now I’m not sure I want to join a kibbutz, but one thing is for sure, I’m happiest when I’m in a group, especially when the pretexts of society are stripped away, when it’s just people. Where you went to school, how much money you have…take away the bragging and it turns out people are more alike than different, you can relate to anybody. Well, there is Gene Simmons…

Ury doesn’t believe in soul mates. If you’re not settling, you’re not doing it right. Think someone is a perfect match? All you’ve got to do is live with them. Logan is being practical, and so many of the unmarried are not. Reminding me of those great Jackson Browne lines:

“Without dreaming of the perfect love

And holding it so far above

That if you stumbled on to someone real you’d never know”

People don’t want to hear the truth. Not only from Jack Nicholson, but almost anybody. They’d rather hew to their delusional viewpoint.

And Ury’s research says “A recent one (survey) found that 88 percent of the app’s users would prefer to date someone who’s in therapy.”

There you have it! If you want to have a relationship you’ve got to have insight into yourself, otherwise how can you have insight into someone else? Going to therapy is hard for most people, they don’t want to admit to themselves that they’re imperfect, that they can’t do it all by themselves. The truth is you can’t, I’ll just leave it at that.

Now Ury is building a business on relationship coaching. I don’t know the woman, for all I know she could be motivated by money. But one thing I do know is people are looking for answers, especially when it comes to love.

So I decided to dig deeper, to go online.

And that’s when I realized that Logan Ury’s publicist deserves a bonus. Ury is everywhere, the “New York Times” is just the cherry on top. But it’s where I saw the story.

And not only are there stories, there’s Instagram and videos and…

I decided to check out Ury’s Instagram, “loganury.”

It’s all advice. It’s detailed. She’s on a mission. And she’s not obscuring it. Too many people are worried about their image. Who has got time for that? If you’re on Instagram you want Logan’s essence. And what is that?

One of her posts says your profile should be accurate, not aspirational. If you lie, what are the odds you’re going to get what you want?

“Look for a partner, not a project.”

People don’t change. Not that much. So if they tick a lot of boxes, they look great and they’re good in bed, that does not trump the fact that they cannot hold down a job, or are untrustworthy.

There’s a cool video, “How to deal with a ZQ (Zero Questions) dater.” She’s got a lot of good advice, but it’s the most practical thing that stood out… If you’re wary of dates with no questions, no back and forth, PUT IT IN YOUR PROFILE! Yes, put in your profile that you love being asked questions. Brilliant!

Now the truth is all of this is not about finding the perfect partner, but getting your skills up, so if you do bump into someone at the grocery store, or meet someone at a party, you don’t freeze up, you use the tools you’ve been taught to interact. There’s a good chance you’ll meet your love off an app, but there’s also a good chance that you won’t meet anybody if you never go on the apps.

As Logan says:

“‘I’m not presenting myself as a guru,’ Ms. Ury said. ‘I tell people: I will create a system that helps you tackle your blind spots and change your decisions.'”

And Ury’s story is relatable:

“…she was pining over a guy whom she referred to in her book as Brian. She’d made out with him during one of her six trips to Burning Man and had glommed onto him; he rebuffed her. He sent her occasional texts, and she sobbed about his dismissiveness. It was the kind of dynamic she sees her clients repeat again and again, clinging to the illusion of a connection.”

Oh, you’ve been there, the unrequited crush. Eventually you get over it, but you can be hung up on these people FOR YEARS!

And finally, Ury appealed to me because:

“‘I’ve done online dating. I’ve ghosted, I’ve been ghosted, I’ve gone on 8.5 dates in one week,’ she said. ‘I feel like I’m the perfect level of attractiveness — it’s not like I’m so beautiful where it’s like, “Oh, dating was so easy.” You have to be someone people can relate to.'”

Ury knows who she is, that she’s not so desirable that she’s beating men off with a stick. Like most of us. And if you only focus on the exterior, you’re gonna miss a lot of great people.

I’m not in the dating market, and I hope to never be again, but I am absolutely fascinated by relationships. Who people are, what brings them together. I can listen to these stories forever. (However I cannot listen to the same damn story told by the same damn person who never takes action.) Which is why I read this article and Googled Logan.

That’s all there is, people. Your toys won’t keep you warm at night. Some of those billionaires are the loneliest people you’ll ever meet. They can’t trust anyone, and they can’t climb down from the totem pole. Yes, in relationships everybody can be a 10. You’ve just got to stop being aspirational and accept yourself. And know that everybody’s idea of a 10 is different.

If you’re in the market, you should check Logan out, just to get your brain going if nothing else. There’s so much to see, so much to learn.

GO FOR IT!