Me and the Rolling Stones

When one thinks of accounting or bookkeeping, they usually visualize some guy sitting over a desk, scribbling numbers and being very boring-at least that is the reaction I always got when I said I was going to be an accountant.  I had no idea of what I was getting myself into when my adventure began.

I recall being given an aptitude test as I was entering high school.  This test was supposed to give you direction as to a career or job direction.  The guidance counselor called me in and told me I could be what ever I wanted.  I had high scores in math and science.  Science really interested me as to the challenge of discovering cures for diseases and solving other mysteries excited me.  For a science project I had tried to feed an amoeba to make it visual to the naked eye.  I thought I had accomplished my goal but it may have been a speck of dust I was viewing instead of an amoeba.  I realized that I did not have the patience to document and spend a lot of time on losing propositions,  so I quickly gave that up. Next choice was being a doctor.  The adolescent plus side was that I could see naked women.  Unfortunately I quickly realized that all my patients would not  be Playboy bunnies plus I had no patience for complainers or whiners.  Not a good thing for bedside manner.  That dream was gone.

While discussing my future choices with my mother she said, "My brother is an accountant and you could work with him".  A guaranteed job with someone I knew sounded great.  I did well with numbers as they dealt with facts and I liked facts.  I started with bookkeeping and accounting courses.  I was very lucky to have, what I called then, a semi photographic memory.  I could read a book and remember the contents for quite a long time.  Most teachers gave tests, 'by the book' and I did well as did my friends who sat next to me :-)  I really liked auditing and finding errors (before graduation I was offered jobs by two of the top accounting firms as a traveling auditor:  Peat, Marwick and Mitchell and Arthur Anderson ).  I decided to major in accounting at the University of Miami and at first I minored in law.  Accounting was working out well  but expecting law to be fact based and black and white turned out to be an idealistic dream.   In law class, we were to do a mock business law trial according to the facts of an actual case, the result to be revealed after our trial.  I was the lead defense attorney and our class genius (he later got MBA's and is quite renowned now) was the prosecutor.  He was reserved and intellectual and the head of the scores in our class where I was second and a wise ass.  My defense was something I pulled out of the air.  According to the case something had happened on a Sunday and since there were blue laws (no work on Sundays) I made up a defense that since nothing could have happened business wise as it was a Sunday, nothing happened and the defendant was innocent. I won and of course in reality I should have lost and the teacher berated the 'jury'.  That instance taught me that the law was gray and that personality and not facts decided the cases and I dropped law as a minor.  I have been proven right on many occasions since.  Further to:  As this was the time of the Vietnam war a lot of the people I knew went on to law school, simply to avoid the draft.  This giant group of people that took law to avoid the draft graduated and had to have something to do.  I think that is what started this country on to it's standing as a litigating society--they had to make money somehow.

It was decided that during my summer breaks from school, I would go to New York and work with my uncle in his accounting practice.  I drove up in my '62 Chevy Impala convertible and would spend the summers working in New York, living with my aunt and grandmother in Union, New Jersey.. and so it began. 

After our three day trip to get to London, business began.  We had an early afternoon meeting at a large investment bank and I told AB the same thing my uncle told me when I would be in big meetings as a novice, “Keep your mouth shut, you have no opinion and even if they ask you your opinion, you don’t have one!”.  This isn’t meant as a derogatory statement, but one of good business sense.  I had learned that the more you don’t speak the more attention you get.  My strategy was to have AB sit there as the CEO and I discussed the points of the deal.   Since the CEO didn’t know who or what AB was doing there, and since I was too funny a guy to be taken seriously eventually he would try and get AB’s input as to what we were discussing.  AB was assumed to be the deciding factor in any compromise and therefore the CEO would negotiate against himself, trying to please and get AB’s agreement,  which would never come.  When I decided the deal was fair, since I knew I was the only fair guy in the room, I would agree and the deal would be done.

After we shook hands on the deal, we were invited to lunch in the executive dining room, replete with butlers and waiting staff. As I had stated in my earlier getting to London discussion, AB only ate roast beef and drank coca cola.  Since our meeting was in the early afternoon I had figured we might all ‘do lunch’ and had a discussion with AB before the meeting.  I told him that he was not going to embarrass me or fit the typical American caricature throughout Europe by asking for a cheese burger and Coca Cola and more than likely we would be served what the kitchen had prepared for the exec’s lunch, so eat it.  I felt bad when the first course was poached fish! I saw the look of fear in his eyes and noted that he pushed the food around his plate to make it look like he was eating it.  The butler came by with wine and asked if AB wanted some or would prefer something else to drink–I had to glare at him and he declined to drink anything.  He didn’t even like iced tea or water so AB suffered on and luckily got roast beef as the main course.

That night I took AB to a casino which turned out to be the biggest mistake I could have made.  He had never been to a casino.  He won at roulette that night and was addicted immediately.  The next afternoon we had a meeting and AB didn’t show.  I got a call from the casino telling me that my friend was trying to sell his watch and had lost all his money – please come get him. It seems that first thing in the morning he was at the casino as the doors opened and learned the fact about gambling, the house usually wins.  The next time we were at a casino, I was asked to leave with him because he was hanging around the ladies bathroom.  When they asked him why he was there, he said it was because it smelled better.  He told me he was following a California girl he met while watching people gamble and was waiting for her outside the ladies room and questioned and his wise mouth got him in trouble.  He was telling the truth as we met the girl and her sister both in from San Diego, later.  That’s another story..

I have a sick sense of humor and prefer a laugh over droll business dealings.  Unfortunately this is not good when dealing with hard core business people.   For the most part they look at a smile and joking while doing deals as a sign of weakness and don’t take you seriously.  With this in mind I developed a business strategy to help me in negotiations.  I would bring in a third party that had nothing to do with the deal and this a story related to that..  I had a friend who had never been to Europe.  I shall refer to him as AB.  He was anal retentive to the degree that he would bring out a vacuum cleaner and clean the carpet during parties.  He only ate roast beef and potatoes and only drank coca cola!  I had some business dealings in London and asked if he wanted to join me–he agreed even though he was scared.  The furthest he had flown before was NY to MIA and he had a great fear of flying.  We were going to leave from Miami at 5 PM and fly directly to London on BOAC.  When we arrived at the airport we were told that there was a delay and we should go home and that they would call us as the flight wasn’t expect to leave until much later in the evening.  I started asking around and found out that a food truck had backed into the wing of the airplane and had damaged it.   They needed to fly the part in from NY and we would be able to leave.  I called a few times and got the update that the part had come in but they had lost it and the bottom line is that we didn’t leave until 5 AM.  As the plane leveled off I noticed that all the flight attendants had disappeared.  I searched and found them hiding in the galley (this was not the giant planes we now have but a  Boeing 707).  I asked what the problem was and they said that in the flurry of activity to get the plane off the ground, they had forgotten to load the food and beverages.  All they had was water.  It gets worse.  With about 45 minutes to go before landing at Heathrow- we were scheduled to arrive at 6PM.  I noticed more activity with the flight attendants.. I asked what the problem was now and they said that there was a strike at Heathrow and all the runways would be closed at exactly 6PM.  The crew wanted the Captain to ‘step on it’ and get in a few minutes early to guarantee our arrival.  Unfortunately the Captain was a by the book officer and would land at 6PM.. We prepared for landing and as we were inches from touching down, we pulled up and were informed that the airport runway was closed.   We were going to Shannon airport in Ireland.  Still no food and only water.. When we landed in Shannon, everything was closed (it was a Sunday) as they hadn’t expected anyone and buses had been brought in to drive us to a hotel.  We boarded 3 buses and off we went.  After driving for over an hour I called out to the driver asking if he knew where we were going.. He stopped the bus and got out saying he needed to ask.  When he got back on the bus, he said all was well and not to worry.   At this point of our travel, I started calling out to the other passengers with the point that the airline was treating us as if we were cattle and were just herding us to and fro.   I got bitchy without food.. About a half hour later, the bus broke down.  The driver got off the bus and ran away!!  About 15 minutes later another bus in our caravan came by and we boarded to standing room only.  We finally arrived at a small beach side resort that had been closed for the winter- the  staff had put together a few sandwiches of lettuce and butter as there was no other food.   They assigned rooms and I remember it was freezing.  I got the bed under this little metal bar that was the heater for the room.  I also immediately went to the bathroom and drew a nice hot bath.. unfortunately for everyone else that was it for the hot water.  They next morning they told us they were going to take us to the airport but we couldn’t be sure the plane was going to leave because of the strike.  Luckily it did and when we landed in London we were told that our bags were on a big truck and it was up to us to get them off.  People jumped on the truck and heaved bags out.. So much for AB’s flight across the pond.  I never flew BOAC again.  I would fly from Miami to NY to get TWA or PAN AM..rather than the ‘direct’ flight from Miami.

Later I will tell of the negotiations..which I will call…No Coke..

I remember how fast we had to create this poster.  Posters weren’t the business they are now.  We would go to a venue and there would be only one guy that was selling his own Stones posters.  I would contact him and try and do a deal for the posters on the spot..

The video should be self explanatory and since a picture is worth a thousand words this is worth?