Innovators!

I consider myself a creative person, but an innovator I am not. If I wrack my brains, the one and only innovation I can come up with is the Gus Sandwich, which I "invented" with my brother Tom (a.k.a. Gus, after the mouse in Cinderella) roughly sixty years ago. As innovations go, The Gus is pretty damned good: bacon, lettuce, cheese and pickle with mayo on pumpernickel. Sixty years back, the bread would likely have been white, the cheese American (cheddar now), but it has stood the test of time, and remains a house favorite. 

Other than that, any mildly innovative idea I have - like maybe make the sign-out button on some app or other more obvious - would be marginal at best if I were a UX designer.

But I can definitely appreciate the innovations of others  - at least some of them. 

The bite wings the dentist uses to take x-rays are a lot better than the gag-inducing ones they used to have. Sneakers have better support than those PF Flyers I laced up when I was a kid. I've grown to like keeping my calendar on line. Blogging wouldn't be possible if there wasn't an Internet...

Other innovations, I'm neutral or even negative on. Like the fact that every rental car seems to have a different way of doing everything, from starting it up to shifting gears to activating the wipers. None of these "innovations" strike me as improvements. They're just changes. And for an occasional driver like me, they're changes for the worst.

But mostly, I'm thankful for all the innovations that end up making life a little easier, a little better. 

So I was plenty pleased to learn that Massachusetts, for the second year, is in second place on Bloomberg's State Innovation Index. "We" came in second to California. Which ain't bad, considering they're a lot larger than "we" are.

The ranking is based on six equally weighted metrics: research and development intensity, productivity, clusters of companies in technology, STEM jobs, residents with degrees in science and engineering disciplines and patent activity. (Source: Boston Globe)

Massachusetts came in first in tech company density, and you don't have to hang around here for very long to figure out that this is true. Route 128 is still pretty much a tech corridor. Kendall Square in Cambridge is jam-packed with tech companies. As is the old Boston leather district. Curiously, the companies mentioned as making up the tech-company density were mostly old timers: GE, Raytheon, Thermo Fisher, Biogen... They did mention Toast, which was a VC darling - up until the pandemic croaked their business, which was a platform for restaurant management. But no mention of more recent innovators like Boston Dynamics with their robotics dog, Spot. (Actually, they've been around nearly 30 years, but Spot is a relatively young pup.)

Massachusetts has a lot of biotech, and this is coming into play in the COVID world with companies like Moderna Therapeutics, which has a new vaccine that's already in human clinical trial. (Biogen is also associated with coronavirus, as the first/worst outbreak of COVID occurred at a Biogen when the company's executive offsite turned them into a super-spreader of the virus.)

Washington ranked #3 on the list, followed by Connecticut and Oregon. The laggards are no surprise: Kentucky, Louisiana, Arkansas, West Virginia, Mississippi. Poor, Southern, rural, under-educated, anti-science. Someone has to come in last, and being last doesn't mean there's nothing going on there, innovation-wise. Still, I'm guessing that these rankings reflect both relative and absolute position. Hard to envision what sort of souped-up Marshall Plan it would take to drag these states into the 21st century. 

At least part of the credit for the success of Massachusetts goes to the Morrill Act, which at the outset of the Civil War helped create universities dedicated to solving practical problems by specializing in  agricultural and engineering research and education. 

The Morrill Act of 1862 helped boost higher education in America by granting states public land they could sell and then use the proceeds to establish colleges.

I had always associated the Morrill Act with the establishment of state universities, and indeed most were founded thanks to Morrill. What I did not know was that:

Massachusetts Institute of Technology was among the earliest recipients of the act, which served as the basis for many other institutions, including the University of California and Washington State University.

News to me. 

Anyway, prior to Morrill pretty much the only engineering school in the US was West Point, which focused on fort building. We've come a long way with respect to innovation. At least I think we have. Get moving, all of yez, on those COVID vaccines...

There are some mighty strange folks out there

There are some mighty strange folks out there, but high on my current list has got to be one Carol Collins, a clairvoyant who channels something or someone named Entity James. 

Collins discovered her power to communicate with the great beyond, in the person/non person of Entity James, after she began daily mediation. Once she began to regularly quiet her mind, something called "clairmobility:"

...became a frequent, even daily event, during meditation although at the time she did not recognize it as such. Direct communication was made less than one year ago initially by the spelling of words through the movement of her head (clairmobility). When she asked who she was speaking to she was given “We are James.” This skill rapidly transitioned – within 8-weeks – to “voice giving” as they loving refer to voice-channeling. Since that time, her development has been guided solely by James. When asked about her skills she prefers to say she “simply Receives in whatever way her body allows.” ...In psychic terms, her skills include clairvoyance, clairsentience, claircognizance, clairmobility, and voice-channeling.

Entity James communicates directly, but she can also summon up other folks who've passed on. She does private and group readings, and conducts (or, rather, James conducts them through her), weekly classes and workshops.

As James puts it, “We are Infinite Intelligence and We know no better way to teach how to communicate with Us than by Us.”

And Carol and James are plenty up to date, what with their blog, emailing, and podcasts.

Having spent most of my adult life with my own personal entity James, when I read about her, I wondered for just a sec if I was my James she'll be channeling at the Rays of Healing Church [source of the above material] this August. Then I read all about it. 

The overall event is called "Oneness and it's [sic] Contribution to All That Is", which will focus on how Consciousness Is. 

I didn't have to channel my entity James. I know right off the bat on my very own to say nah, that's so not my boy.

Not to mention that my entity James would not have been caught dead or alive in any entity called the Rays of Healing Church.

Shades of Marianne Williamson, and infinitely make-fun-able. But mostly I'm cool with to each their own. If someone wants to attend a séance on a wet afternoon - or on a dry one, for that matter. If they want to stare a navels, or crystals. Whatever brings you comfort and joy - as long as you're not harming anyone else - have at it. Whatever floats your spiritual boat. 

It's not her run of the mill James Experience claptrap (claptrap at least to me) that got Carol Collins noticed. 

No, a few weeks ago, she and James decided that channeling George Floyd might be a good idea:

Maybe if Carol and/or James had kept to an anodyne message about "enjoy your family" she and/or Jimbo could have escaped notice. But the Voice of Entity James decided to get political. They had George Floyd advising - advising who, exactly, folks involved with Black Lives Matter? - those still on earth to "remove my name from being associated with hate." Which is not exactly what Black Lives Matter is about now, is it? Sure, there are some aholes who have glommed on to the protests for their own reasons, but for the most part the BLM protests have been peaceful, and have done nothing more than demand the most basic of human rights.

But Carol and/or James have George admonishing "civil liberties are not what we need to be fighting for."

Huh? I have no idea what George Floyd, if there actually is such a thing as post-mortem consciousness, might have to say. But if I were a betting women, my chips would be on his advocating precisely for civil rights.

If there are "non-physical vibrational Beings" out there, there are plenty for Carol Collins to choose from. Maybe she should stick to the dead and gone mothers who need to tell their kids, "I loved you more than you ever knew." The dead and gone husbands who want to assure their here on earth wives that they know that they "did everything they could."

Maybe keep the politics out of it.

Meanwhile, I will keep my mind attuned for any communication with my own personal entity James.

The No-tell Motel of Airbnb's

Many years ago, my husband and I, as we made our way from Boston to Prague, were on a lllloooonnnngggg layover in Frankfurt. Already in the zombie stupor that comes with an all-nighter to Europe - a red eye if ever - the thought of hanging around Frankfurt Airport, which is large, noisy and chaotic, was overwhelming. We spied a Sheraton Hotel just across the way from our terminal. Hmmm.

We rolled our bags over and asked if we could get a room for a few hours. 

The answer: Jawohl! They had a 4 hour rate. Perfect!

We had breakfast frühstück, took our showers, and conked out for a couple of hour nap. Ah, bliss! By the time we got to Prague that evening we were rarin' to go, and never suffered from any jet lag.

So I get the idea of wanting a place to call home away from home for a few hours at a time: When you arrive a few hours before check-in time and even though you asked for early check-in, the room isn't made up yet. When you have to check-out and your flight isn't until late in the day. When you get off of a long overnight flight and want to clean up before your meeting. (I did very little international business travel, but I once had to go directly from Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam to a client meeting.)

So I get the idea.

Still, there's something a bit No-Tell Motel about hiring a hotel room for a few hours, something that puts the rack in rack rate.

Anyway, that's where my simple and dirty little mind lurched when I saw a mention in The Economist of a company called Globe. Their app lets owners rent out their homes - or just a room in their flat - by the hour. 

This San Francisco outfit didn't start out quite this way. 

The startup evolved from a previous iteration of the company, known previously as Recharge. Back then, its business model revolved around persuading hotels to let out their rooms on hourly or even minute-by-minute stays, but it was forced to adapt due to the amount of cleaning that was required between check-ins. (Source: shortermrentalz.com)

Minute-by-minute stays, you say. Talk about a quickie!

Anyway, once the hotels decided that the Recharge model was a non-starter, founder and CEO Manny Bamfo came up with a new idea: use the Airbnb model, only for hyper-short-term rentals. I'm guessing their aim at that point was to get big and interesting enough for Airbnb to purchase them. (Bamfo had worked for a prior start up, Hitch, which had a carpooling app. The company was acquired by Lyft.) 

So, Globe emerged in 2019 and was bouncing along - it had over 10,000 hosts worldwide willing to rent out a room in their home, when COVID-19 hit. Once everyone started sheltering in place and business travel all started happening via Zoom, there was a lot less demand for places where weary travelers could take a pick-me-up shower or enjoy a nooner with someone other than their partner.

And then another lightbulb went off, and Bamfo turned on a dime, repositioning their offering:

As people find themselves stranded away from loved ones, the startup is temporarily marketing its platform as an escape from the confines of home so that they can seek out better wifi or a quiet space to make essential calls.

Lemon -> lemonade. This is Smart Marketing 101. 

It apparently was working:

Since the coronavirus outbreak, the company reports, it has seen 25,000 new users worldwide. And in New York, there’s now a wait list of more than 10,400 people who want to become guests, according to cofounder Emmanuel Bamfo, no doubt fueled by coronavirus-related cabin fever. About 2,000 people have come off it and been approved to use the app, adds Bamfo, 30. (Source: NY Post)

Then in late May, Globe was hit with a "cease and desist" letter from the City of San Francisco which claims that the company was in violation of SF's shelter-in-place order. 

The letter sent by city officials to Bamfo and his fellow partner Eric Xu claimed that the startup appeared to violate a shelter-in-place order that it implemented in March:

...specifically that Globe’s Covid-19 specific policies do not go far enough to prevent the spread of the virus, and they have threatened to take immediate action.

Bamfo and Xu are said to have been left “shocked” by the letter and insist that their measures, such as cleaning checklists for hosts and customers having to send pictures of thermometer readings, are adequate. Source, back to: shortermrentalz.com)

I haven't seen any reporting on how this is playing out. Although I know that it sometimes doesn't seem that way, the pandemic won't last for ever. If Globe survives, it'll be interesting to see whether they pivot back to their weary travelers and/or tryst positioning or something altogether different. Seeing whether anything they do will be enough to get Airbnb to come knocking will be interesting.  A note to Airbnb: Just remember: if you hear rockin', don't come knockin'.

Spam in vogue? Not in my house!

True confessions:

In a moment of pandemic panic, I bought a tin of corned beef. One cold and COVID winter's evening, surely I would look to comfort food, and make myself some hash. I do recall that there's a good recipe for it - one that calls for canned corned beef - in my Good Cheap Food cookbook. It's a paperback book that I acquired in the 1970's that now has a broken spine, a torn and dog-eared covered, and dried up pages - all brown and brittle, some falling out - that disintegrate at the touch. But it is the source of the recipes for two dishes I make with some frequency: spaghetti carbonara and quiche. So I hang on to it. And I do believe there's a recipe for hash in there. The last time I made it - maybe 40 years ago? - it was pretty damned good. So at some point, I'll make me some hash.

It will not, of course, be as good as my mother's. Hers was the real deal. The night after we had a corned beef dinner - always on St. Patrick's Day and another time or so each year - my mother got out her meat grinder, screwed it onto the counter, and ground up the leftover meat for hash. I wasn't wild about corned beef dinner (other than the boiled potatoes). But I do love hash. And my mother's was awesome.

Then there's deviled ham. I do not have any on my shelf now, but once in a while, I have a craving for an Underwood Deviled Ham Spread sandwich. Revolting, I agree, and it doesn't happen that often, but once in a while. Maybe it's just that I love the can with the little devil on it...

Which brings me to Spam, which as a kid I loved. (No accounting for a kid's taste: I also loved fried baloney.)

Every once in a while, my mother would serve us Spam for dinner - cooked up in a cast iron skillet and accompanied by home fries. Delish. Unless she sneaked green pepper into the home fries, which I hated for some reason. Anyway, I loved Spam night. I can still feel the chemical burn on the tip of my tongue that occurred when I took the first, yummy bite.

We didn't have Spam all that often, and it was only served for supper when my father wasn't home. Having spent 4 years in the Navy during WWII, he felt that he'd had his full lifetime ration of Spam.

And now, I've heard, there's been a surge in demand for Spam.

Canned meat is having a moment. Demand is booming across the globe. In the United States, sales surged more than 70 percent in the 15 weeks ended June 13. In the UK, consumption of canned corned beef has taken off. Even in South Korea, where Spam is an old favorite, sales are expanding at the fastest pace in years. At first, people were loading up on pantry staples with a long shelf life during lockdown conditions. Then, shortages of some fresh meat supplies, especially in the US, also helped to drive sales. Now, the economic downturn is underpinning demand. (Source: Bloomberg)

Good news for Hormel, but I'd consider turning vegan before I took the key and uncoiled a can of Spam...

Will Mookie's big payday come off as planned?

One of the only upsides of the pandemic is that I don't have to read anything about former Red Sox darling Mookie Betts starring it up for the Los Angeles Dodgers, a team I despise almost as much as I despise the Yankees.

From 2014 when he made it to the pros, on through last's dud of a season, Mookie was pretty much my favorite Red Sox. Me and almost every other card carrying member of Red Sox Nation. Great both on the field and off, we all fell for Mookie. Plus he has an adorable baby, who I saw in the arms of her mother when they walked right in front of me at Fenway Park. So I felt terrible when he was traded to the Dodgers for next to nothing, even though I understand, roughly, the economics behind it on the part of both Mookie and the Red Sox.

Anyway, next year, Mookie becomes a free agent, and he was expecting a HUGE pay day. He is, based on his stats, at the very top of the game:

Mookie Betts is first in the majors in runs, fourth in hits, second in doubles, fourth in stolen bases, and leads all outfielders with 112 defensive runs saved since making his major league debut June 29, 2014.

Betts has accumulated 41.8 WAR since his first day in the majors. Only Mike Trout, with 52.9, has more over that time.

In short, Betts has been the second-best player in the game for 5½ years and the only player better is one of the all-time greats. (Source: Peter Abrahams, Boston Globe)

That first-best player, Mike Trout, was found worthy of a $426.5 12-year package by the Angels. The sort of walking around money that Mookie Betts might have expected.

But that was then and this is now...

For Trout, who agreed to his extension before last season, the timing was perfect. For Betts, who becomes a free agent after this season, it’s a disaster.

Mookie had turned down an offer in the $300 million range from the Red Sox so that he could test the waters of free agency. So off he went to LA, anticipating that, after one of his typically stellar seasons, he would be poised for a pay day's PAY DAY.

Just as the Internet changed everything, so did the coronavirus, especially when it comes to sports.

“It’s not a question of who will want him. Everybody would want him. It’s who can afford what he’s worth,” said an agent who is not affiliated with Betts. “This is a national crisis, I understand that. But he really takes a hit.”

...Unless a vaccine for COVID-19 is developed by the end of this season, season-ticket sales and renewals for 2021 will plunge. They could well nosedive even with a vaccine given how many people have lost their jobs or had their salaries reduced because of the pandemic.

...Even if teams can persuade people to come to a game, they may have to lower prices for tickets, concessions, and merchandise. However it all plays out, revenue will drop in 2021.

We learned last night that there will be a 2020 season, 60 games long, so less than half of a regular season. A definite drop in revenue - ticket sales, concessions, TV and radio - for the owners. (Expenses are, of course, lower, as the players will be receiving a prorated amount of their salaries.)

In any case, with less loot coming in, baseball teams will be a bit more cautious moving forward. 

Plus free agency rules may change when the players negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement at the end of the 2021 season.

Mookie's on the losing end of all this. He'll still get a whopping contract. But there's whopping and then there's WHOPPING. 

It may turn out that he would have been better off taking the relatively light (light only in baseball dollars; it was, after all, for $300 million) offer from the Red Sox. We'll see. 

Sports money is so crazy, and I especially love the argument that athletes have to compress their careers into a few short years while the rest of us get to work forever, and won't make over a lifetime what so many athletes make in a year. Not all athletes are crazily awarded. Especially in football, where there are so many players on the squad, and most of them are playing for short money and can get cut at any time. 

But when I think the sports money is crazy, I have to remind myself that it's entertainment, and if the great athletes make movie star money, so be it.

Meanwhile, I still harbor the fantasy that baseball will be back next year, and that the Red Sox will have a shot at getting Mookie back.

A girl can dream, can't she.

Lucky Gal's luck runs out

Bianca de la Garza used to be a local TV news gal. But her sights were set on something far bigger and far better. So she founded a beauty company that sells stuff like pricey lip gloss and something called "illuminating serum." (I have no idea whatsoever what that is, but couldn't we all use some illuminating serum in our lives???) She has a multi-media company Bianca de la Garza Digital, that has something to do with "empowering women all over the world." And in 2015, she had a show, "Bianca Unanchored" that ran on a handful of CBS affiliates for a year. The show was produced by her company Lucky Gal Productions.

But luck may have run out for Bianca.

Seems that the Alden Shoe Company, which sells dad/prepster shoes like tassel loafers and wingtips, had a light-fingered CFO on board.  Richard Hajjar, who was with Alden for 30 years, has allegedly:

...embezzled more [a lot more] than $20 million from the company, funneling $15 million of those funds into the TV and fashion businesses of de la Garza. (Source: Boston Globe)

$15 million? Well, lucky for her. 

It wasn't just de la Garza's professional life that was benefiting from knowing Hajjar.

Hajjar bought a $1.1 million New York City co-op for de la Garza using money stolen from the company’s coffers, according to the court filing.

Hmmm. $1.1 million may sound like a lot of money, but that's not much in NYC. Sounds like a cramped dump to me. Especially for someone driving a Mercedes-Benz and sporting a $158K diamond ring. Where'd those goodies come from? Hajjar, of course, whoss purchases for his sweetie included:

... “a Mercedes-Benz, a $60,000 diamond bracelet, a $158,000 diamond ring, diamond earrings, designer handbags, designer clothing, and other luxury goods.” He also gave his personal American Express card to a personal shopper at Nieman Marcus, where de la Garza “freely purchased” hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise each month, the court filing alleges, and Hajjar paid off those credit card bills using money from Alden... and purchased other extravagant gifts, including a Mercedes-Benz, diamond jewelry, and designer handbags and clothing.

It's easy enough to "freely purchase" hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of N-M merch if you don't actually have to pay for it, right, Bianca?

The embezzlement began in 2011, right about the time that Hajjar and de la Garza became "friends." (She claims that they did not have a romantic relationship.) But talk about friends with benefits. 

The thievery was found out when Alden's president decided he wanted to transfer $10 million in retained earnings from the company's account to family trusts. Hajjar was slow to move on the request. For reasons that soon became all too obvious. 

When pressed, Hajjar called in sick. I'll bet. 

As Hajjar kept dodging, Alden's president Arthur Tarlow did a bit of sleuthing and discovered that the retained earnings cupboard was bare. And an $8 million line of credit had been drawn down. 

In a 2018 interview in Forbes, de la Garza discussed her decision to leave the anchor desk and start Lucky Gal Productions. “So, I went ahead, and I started my company... and I launched a show," she said. "I raised all the money, got all the distribution.”

You raised all that money? Good big girl!

Alden is going after both Hajjar and de la Garza, hoping to claw back some of the money from her. Alden lawyers maintain that she:

...“knew or should have known” that Hajjar did not have millions of dollars, despite receiving over $15 million in cash transfers and hundreds of thousands in gifts from him.

This reminds me of a long-ago local scandal in which a bunch of parking meter workers were nabbed for embezzling quarters. One of the amusing aspects of this was that their wives did all their shopping using bags of quarters. One wife was asked whether she thought there was something amiss, what with the bags of quarters and the fact that they lived in an upscale home in an upscale town, well beyond what a guy who empties out parking meters for the city could afford. She just shrugged and said, "I just thought he was a good provider."

de la Garza has lawyered up, of course. She's using Charles Harder, who was responsible for taking down Gawker and who, in this election cycle alone, has been paid (or not) $2.9 million by none other than Donald Trump. 

Harder has since represented Trump and his campaign in a variety of lawsuits, both real and threatened, against major news organizations — as well as against the porn actress known as Stormy Daniels, who says she had an affair with the president. (Source: Boston.com)

Harder is claiming that Alden, and a number of media outlets covering the case, have gotten some of the facts of the matter wrong. And he's saying that Hajjar and de la Garza were never in a romantic relationship. I guess Hajjar just really, really, liked her a lot.

Boston is not immune to scandals, but this is an especially interesting one. An old-timer traditional New England shoe company. A media personality in a town where media personalities are a really big deal. A ton of money. And the lawyer who represented Trump against Stormy Daniels.

de la Garza may no longer be such a lucky gal, but for those of us who like to sink our teeth into local scandals... Well, let's just say that we're feeling lucky.

Sorry, Charlie.

My mother - both a child of the Depression and a widow who was widowed when she still had young kids at home - knew what every item on the grocery shelf was supposed to cost. Once, when she was recovering from an operation, I got to do her grocery shopping for her. She handed me her list - organized, of course, by aisle - her coupons, and $45, and told me that it should come out to $43.71. It did.

A frequent topic of phone conversation with my mother was always the price of iceberg lettuce, or grapes, or mayo, at the Price Chopper. Especially iceberg lettuce for some reason. I remember once her refusing to buy it because it had gone up a dime.

Me? I'm not so much concerned about what things cost at the grocery store.  Other than when bing cherries are going for $9.99 a pound in the dead of winter, I don't notice whether the price of anything is more than it was the week before. And I'm not that price sensitive, even if it is. I didn't grow up during the Depression, and I have a lot more money to fritter away than my mother ever did.

So I never noticed that, thanks to some nifty price fixing on the part of former Bumble Bee CEO Chris Lischewski, I was being gouged on tuna.

When it comes to tuna, I'd prefer to be a geisha girl, as Geisha was the brand I grew up on. I suspect my mother bought Geisha becomes it was cheaper. That or the only brand stocked at the neighborhood non-chain grocery store where our family shopped. 

In any case, as with several other products of my long ago and far away childhood - Scott toilet paper, Hellman's mayo - I remained brand loyal to Geisha. Until I couldn't find it anywhere, any more. So I switched to Bumble Bee, probably because it had the most space on the shelf devoted to it and/or because I never liked the Sorry, Charlie, ads for Starkist and/or because I always found the idea of Chicken of the Sea revolting, probably because my mind was always conflating chicken with the mermaid, and/or because while I know that sophisticated folks are supposed to prefer fancy tuna in oil, I'm a basic solid white in water kind of tuna gal.

So, unbeknownst to me, those prices I was paying were fixed. 

In December, Lischewski was found guilty by a San Francisco federal jury of conspiring with colleagues and other industry executives to manipulate canned tuna prices, capping aU.S. investigation that shook the packaged seafood industry and ultimately forced Bumble Bee into bankruptcy. (Source: Bloomberg Law)

A few weeks back, although his attorneys argued for 12 months home confinement - which, thanks to COVID, we all now know is not all that pleasant but is definitely doable -  Lichewski was slapped with a 40 month sentence and a $100K fine. Which at the going rate (3 for $5.00 for a 5 oz. can of solid white albacore in water) translates into 60,000 cans. In any case, Lichewski has finally run into something he hasn't been able to fix. 

Getting sent to prison for price fixing is rare. 

The best-known is the late A. Alfred Taubman, the shopping-mall magnate and onetime chairman of Sotheby’s Holdings Inc. He was convicted in 2001 and sentenced to a year and a day in prison for collaborating with rival auction house Christie’s International Plc to fix fees and cheat customers out of roughly $100 million. Taubman was released two months early.

Maybe the sentence for Taubman was relatively light for the financial magnitude of the cheat because he was scamming rich people.

As for Lichewski, the prosecution was looking for harder time (8-10 years) and more $$$ ($1M). So I guess you might say he's off the hook. A bit, at least.

As for other tuna producers - sorry, Charlie - Starkist and Chicken of the Sea were both involved. (Not, apparently, Geisha.) Not clear whether their execs will also do time, but Lichewski was considered the ringleader. (Didn't the ad used to tell us Bumble Bee tuna is best?)

Lichewski is appealing. And why not? Who in their right mind wants to spend time in the can?

Juneteenth

I don't know when I first learned about Juneteenth, but I'm thinking it was likely twenty years ago when Ralph Ellison's novel, Juneteenth, was published posthumously. 

There really wasn't much by way of Black history taught when I was growing up. We definitely learned about George Washington Carver, scientist and Tuskegee professor known - at least in our history books - for experiments with peanuts. 

But our history books were lacking in general. In the 1950's and early 1960's, when I was in parochial grammar school, our textbooks were focused through a Catholic lens. The Catholic focus was most obvious (or glaring or absurd) when it came to history. 

I don't remember if we studied any world history during grammar school, but American history was definitely skewed.

In our reading, the most important actors, the only ones worth caring about, were the Catholics. 

Catholic Christopher Columbus, sent on his not-so-merry way by a Catholic king to discover us. 

Sure there were Pilgrims, but they were nothing but a bunch of stay-put bores. All they gave us was Thanksgiving. Compare their hanging about, stirring only to fight pitched battles with Native Americans, and cook turkey come November, to the derring-do of the explorers. 

Vasco de Gama. Ponce de Leon. Jacques Cartier. Louis Joliet. Pere Marquette, who was best of all: priest and explorer. And what could be more exhilarating than following the path of Junipero Serra as he established all those missions in California.

Founding Fathers, ptooey! We all knew that the most important man to sign the Declaration of Independence was Charles Carroll of Carrollton. Never heard of him? Did you go to Wattsamatta U? Charles Carroll of Carrollton was the only Catholic to add his John Hancock to the D of I.

Speaking of fathers, the Father of the U.S. Navy? John Barry - a Taig straight out of County Wexford. (The church I grew up in had spectacular stained glass windows which weren't dedicated to saints, but to important Catholics in American history. John Barry was right up there.)

And so what if Roger Taney was a cadaverous old git who, as a Supreme Court Justice, wrote the execrable Dred Scott Decision. Hey, he was one of ours! (The Supremes, of course, made up for lost Catholic time. Today's court has a Catholic majority: Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Sotomayor, and Kavanaugh. And maybe Gorsuch (raised Catholic but attends an Episcopal church with his Episcopalian wife). 

We learned about Al Smith, the first Catholic to run for President. And we lived history when JFK ran and won.

What with all this concentration on Catholics, there was just no room for learning anything about Black history.

In high school, our textbooks were mainly secular, and a bit more Black history slipped in: Frederick Douglass. Harriet Tubman. The Tuskegee Airmen. 

Did we read any Black authors in high school? I seem to remember James Baldwin. But that's about it. 

In college I read W.E.B. Dubois.

But Juneteenth?

Nah, never heard of it.

But what a glorious day to celebrate - the day when the Emancipation Proclamation finally finished up emancipating the slaves, when those enslaved in the most remote of the slave states, Texas were free at last.

I wish it were more widely celebrated, more widely known. 

But maybe our Black fellow citizens are just as happy to have it on the down low, so that they can enjoy it all on their own, without others grabbing at it an co-opting it.

I hope that this year's Juneteenth celebration is joyous and peaceful. That they don't let the Trump campaign's hideous and racist decision to hold their first post-COVID rally on June 19th in Tulsa (or all places) put a damper on it. (Yes, I know that the rally was moved to June 20th, but I read that Trump advisors were well aware of the symbolism of holding that first rally on Juneteenth, in Tulsa - the scene, in 1921, of the worst incident of racial violence in American history - and were surprised by the backlash that forced them back off a bit.)

Anyway, wishing a wonderful Juneteenth to the Black community. And wishing that it gets included in all history books. It's a lot more important that Charles Carroll of Carrollton.

Worthless stock, you say? I won't get fooled again!

It's been a while since Hertz has been putting much of anybody in the driver seat. No business travel. No pleasure travel. In just a few short months, we've been turned into masked marvels of stay-at-home-ness. 

I have no idea how Hertz was faring before the pandemic hit, but I'm guessing not great. Zipcar must have put a bite on them when it drove into view in the early oughts. And then Uber and Lyft came along. 

Once Zipcar was available, I stopped renting cars unless I needed one for an overnight trip somewhere. And once I discovered the magic that is Uber - I first learned about it when a fellow Zipcar returner in the Boston Common Garage started raving about it and showed me the app - I rarely took a Zipcar anywhere, either.

But however Hertz was doing - and, hey, I'm not a business journalist so I don't have to look it up - it's safe to say that coronavirus hasn't helped their business any. A year ago, their stock was trading at $15-ish; just pre-COVID, $10-ish. (So I did look it up afterall. Just a bit.)

Anyway, here they sit, filing for bankruptcy, and, in the midst of it all, they're trying to float $1B worth of shares as a way to raise some cash and pay off some of the mountain of debt that's forced them into bankruptcy. And there's the looming specter of Hertz stock being delisted.

But on their way to penny stock-hood:

Hertz asked permission for the sale after a nearly tenfold increase in its stock from 56 cents on May 26 to $5.53 on Monday. The company told the court it would warn buyers that “the common stock could ultimately be worthless.” (Source: Boston Globe)

"Ultimately worthless." Now where have I heard that before.

Decades ago, I worked for Wang, which had an employee stock purchase plan. Chump that I am, I did not want to work for a company I had so little faith in that I wouldn't buy their stock. So I had them take money out of my paycheck. Not a ton, but the amount that sticks in my mind is that I ended up paying roughly $9K for the shares I bought over the two-and-a-half years I was with the company. Not a ton, but if my recall is correct, I made a total of roughly $150K over those two-and-a-half miserable, nearly insufferable years. So, 6% of my pay. So, while not a ton, it was plenty.

I think the deal was that we bought the shares at a 15% discount, and had to play Texas Hold 'Em for a few months before we could unload. Either the share price was never high enough to cover the cost, or I was too lazy to bother, but within a couple of years after I departed that company, the shares were worth zero.

Well, not quite zero, as I was able to take a capital loss on it.

Live and learn. 

My next company was private, and I did make some money when we were acquired. But I did end up holding some shares in Teradyne, the company that acquired us, and did okay with it. (I think I still have some around here somewhere. It's just in an account that I never look at.)

Next up, Genuity, which in the go-go years of the late nineties/early aughts had a big old IPO for themselves.

Remember when I said live and learn? I meant live and not learn.

Chump that I was, it didn't feel right to me, as a director with 25 or so employees under me, that I didn't have enough faith in the company to take part in the IPO. (I almost typed in "take advantage." Hah to that!)

The stock was projected to go out at $11/share, and I calculated that the amount I was prepared to lose was $11K. So 1,000 shares it was.

Good thing I was prepared to lose that $11K.

It could have been worse. Some of my colleagues took out second mortgages or raided their kids' college funds. I knew some couples where both worked at Genuity, and they doubled down. There was a limit to how much you could invest - half your salary? In any case, you could do yourself plenty of damage. 

The day before the IPO, there was an article in The Boston Globe on the complexity of this offering - a spinout from Verizon, and, at the time, the largest IPO in history - that ended with the words "This one's for the pros."

Should have listened.

On IPO day, the stock went out and started declining. By the close of the market, share price was down around $7. 

Us newly minted shareholders would have sold then and there, but we had to hang on for six months... Six long months, during which we all sat there watching the share price wend its way down toward zero. At least I was prepared to lose that $11K. Others were out a lot more. And the ones who'd invited 'friends and family' to partake of the feast, well, as one colleague told me, "My father-in-law didn't like me to begin with."

Anyway, given my history, you might think I'd be a natural for picking up some Hertz. But I only make bad investments in companies I work for, thank you. Not to mention that I'm older and wiser these days, and would listen to what folks who actually follow this stuff have to say:

“Unless a genie or a lamp showed up the collateral pool, we expect the eventual equity value will be zero,” the CreditSights analysts said.

Investors eyeing Hertz might be some of the same who have been buying “deep value ‘penny-like’ stocks” on Robinhood, said Nancy Tengler, chief investment officer at Laffer Tengler Investments, also ahead of the decision.

“This is not investing. It is gambling,” she said.

“This is for the quick buck crowd, not long-term investors,” Tengler went on. (Source: Market Watch)

These days, I try harder not to get sucked in. Put me down for include me out! 

Zooming with celebrities

Perhaps if I knew who Jeremy Piven is, I might have understood why it might be worth spending $15K to spend 10 minutes chatting with him on Zoom. Even though you do get to invite "up to four friends, family, or colleagues", the price struck me as steep. But, then again, I'm at a disadvantage here as I'd never heard of him.

Turns out, he's an actor who starred in Entourage and a couple of other shows I had heard of. And he grew up with John Cusack, someone I am familiar with. I just hadn't heard of Jeremy Piven. Maybe if I had, it would seem worth it. Maybe.

But reading about Jeremy Piven's Zoom offering made me curious about Cameo, the company that's selling shares of Jeremy Piven's time. 

While Zoom is opening up new and potentially more lucrative markets for Cameo, their bread and butter is "personalized video messages from your favorite celebrities." With a lineup of tens of thousands of athletes, actors, reality TV stars, comedians, musicians, creators, and political-ish figures, there's something for everyone.

Why, there's Boston Rob from Survivor. You can get a message from him for $150. If you'd rather Zoom, it's only $350 for a 10 minute chat. Definitely a bargain, especially when compared to Jeremy Piven. And if you think Kato Kaelin has disappeared, think again! For $60, Kato will wish you happy birthday, happy anniversary, congratulations, or whatever sort of hello you'd like from Kato. (O.J. Simpson is not on the roster, however.)

The largest group, with more than 8,000 names to choose from, is athletes. There's no Tom Brady. And although one of his brothers is available for a $29 greeting, Rob Gronkowski isn't on the list, either. The two former Patriots can rake in bigger money for appearances and ads, so why bother with a pedestrian video greeting to a member of the great unwashed. But the athletes on the list are by no means all the likes of the Lesser Gronkowski. For $500, Yankee great, reliever Mariano Rivera will say 'hi'. And for $750, David "Big Papi" Ortiz will do the same. 

If you're interested in female athletes, why, there's Mia Hamm ($125), and, from the way back, Nadia Comaneci ($50).

Red Sox fans will be delighted to learn that, in addition to Big Papi, they can get a howdy from Jerry Remy ($50), Terry Francona ($110), Fred Lynn ($65), Johnny Damon - hiss, boo ($100), and Steve "Psycho" Lyons ($75). I don't know in what universe Steve Lyons' greeting is worth more than one from Fred Lynn, but that's the market for you. Meanwhile, I've already had a free greeting from Steve Lyons (a former player who does Red Sox analysis). Last season, at a game with my sister Trish, Steve Lyons walked by. When I recognized him, the word "Pscyho" (his nickname) jumped out of my mouth, and - lo and no-cost behold - Psycho, seemingly delighted to be recognized, turned around and gave us a bit of a smile and a wave.

My favorite star from the music world was Peter Noone, lead singer of Herman's Hermits, a British rock band of the early 1960's. Boomer special: $50. (Noone was probably my favorite because he was one of the few musicians on Cameo that I was familiar with.)

There's also the creator category, where you can hire celebrity blogger Perez Hilton for $90. Or - ugh, ugh, ugh - someone named Granny Potty Mouth for $36. Spare me, oh Lord, from the Granny Potty Mouths of the world. Something tells me that someone who goes by Potty Mouth is not much of a potty mouth (a term I fucking despise).

My favorite group is the political one. A lot of Trump impersonators out there; and one Elizabeth Warren imitator. If you're wondering what former Illinois Governor Rod Blagocevich ($80) and his wife Patti ($40) are doing since Trumpo sprung Rod from the hoosegow, well, they're on Cameo.

There's quite a group of right-wing "celebrities" seizing the day. Seb Gorka will give you a pep talk for $45 (the 45 being in honor of the 45th "president", as well as a recognition that's probably the max of what he's worth). Jacob Wohl, the little punk who runs fake press conferences dishing fake dirt on the likes of Robert Mueller and Elizabeth Warren, can also be had for $45. (How this ahole isn't in jail, I don't know. Maybe it's that he's just too ridiculous. He tried to smear E Warren by having some boy-toy claim they'd been in a B&D relationship.)

Roger Stone is trying to get some pre-prison earning in ($75), which is a bit more than Corey Lewandowski charges ($70). Sean Spicer, with the double glory of being a former Trump Press Secretary AND Dancing with the Stars loser, can command a hefty $199. But Omarosa only gets $55, even less than Gun Girl, who goes for $60.

Stormy Daniels out commands them all: $250 for a meet and greet without the meet.

Who can blame anyone for wanting to monetize their fame and/or notoriety, however minimal. And it would be a fun gift for someone who's a head-over-heels fan. 

But Seb Gorka? Is it possible that he really does have admirers? Ooofff.

I guess it makes more sense to pay $45 to Seb Gorka to do his deep-voiced droning best to inspire than it does to shell out $15K to chat with Jeremy Piven. 

What a wacky world we live in.

Brilliant career move, former Ebayers

There's a couple in Natick, a Boston suburb, who run a website/newsletter/blog devoted to eCommerce. And, quite naturally, one of their frequent subjects is eBay. And, quite naturally, some of what they write about is less than favorable. And, quite naturally, this annoyed some folks at eBay who didn't like what they were reading. And, quite unnaturally, some of these folks (senior members of the eBay security team) decided to resort to some pretty unsavory - criminal, even - tactics to get back at the couple from Natick. 

The tactics were a combination of petty, dramatic, juvenile, and outright vicious.

So, quite naturally, those eBay over-reactors (all now former eBay employees) have been indicted and arrested. 

Joseph Bonavolonta, the FBI special agent in charge of the case, said the group was inspired by the movie "Johnny Be Good."(NBC News)

"Johnny Be Good", huh? A 1988 comedy about a high school ath-a-lete? The one with a soundtrack that includes a song by Ted Nugent? That "Johnny Be Good"? Be careful about where you look for inspiration.

Anyway, the eBay Six ordered a bunch of nasty stuff to be delivered to the Natick couple:

...everything from live spiders, a box of cockroaches, a preserved pig fetus, a pig mask, to a sympathy wreath and book on how to survive the loss of a spouse," Bonavolonta said.

"All the while, they were hiding behind the internet, using burner phones and laptops, overseas email accounts, and pre-paid debit cards purchased with cash, to try and cover up their crimes and evade and obstruct the Natick Police Department," Bonavolonta added. 

The eBay Six's strategy was a combo of harrassing deliveries, threatening messages, and things that went way above and beyond (including a foiled attempt to put a GPS tracker on the couple's car, and defacing their property), to be followed by the eBay malfactors "contact[ing] the couple so they could proclaim that eBay noticed the harassment and offered to help them get out of the threatening environment eBay itself created."

A variation on the good cop-bad cop themes known as a White Knight Strategy. Maybe more like those arsonists who hang around the fires they set trying to help the firefighters put them out.

Too bad it backfired. Check and mate.

These eBay folks were really something. Andrew Lelling is the US Attorney for Boston:

According to Lellling, the now-fired eBay officials also sent items including pornography to the couple’s neighbors in the couple’s names, posted listings on Craigslist urging swingers and couples to come to the Natick couples’ home to party every night after 10 pm, and created fake social media accounts to send messages to the couple including one that said, “do I have your attention now?” (Source: Boston Globe)

The six FORMER member so eBay's global security 
team who made up eBay Six include a former cop, a fellow with a BA in Criminology - where he was obviously paying close attention in the classes on criminality, and a former US Army Captain who'd worked for the DOJ. 

Law, meet disorder. 

Devin Wenig, eBay's CEO until last September, also got a look. He'd made some disparaging remarks about the Natick couplethat made their way to the security team. His remarks were deemed "inappropriate," but there's no evidence tying him to advance knowledge of the eBay Six's crime spree. (It seems that his tangential involvement may have been part - but only part - of the reason that Wenig and eBay parted company.)

Who knows whether any of the eBay Six will end up in prison. But maybe they should have been paying more attention to Barretta rather than to "Johnny Be Good." Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. 

Anyway, I'd say that the behavior of this crew will definitely prove career-limiting. What a bunch!

A mask for everything

Over the past several months, I have acquired quite a few different face masks. I have a couple (butterfly print, plaid) that my sister Trish made. A bunch I bought on Etsy - plain black or plain white. Some bandana-style masks I've never worn, that I'll be donating to St. Francis House. (I don't like the fit.) A couple of neck gaiters I found on Amazon. And a package of throw-away masks a friend gave me. 

Day in, day out, when I step outside my door, I've got a mask on. (Or, as when I was on the Cape last week, with few people about, I've got a mask hanging around my neck or off of my ear so I can hastily cover mouth and nose if anyone comes within sight.)

Some of my masks are hook over the ears style. Others are elastic behind the back of the headers.

The only mask that I have that's themed is my Red Sox mask. 

Looks like I've been missing out.

I could have been buying any number of masks that showed off my  true colors or fandom.

I could be sporting a Vote mask. Better yet, a VOTE BLUE one, although in my neighborhood, that's not really all that necessary. 

If I were a New York, I might want to get me a pizza rat neck gaiter. Or not.

If I were so inclined, I could be breathing through the Beatles, or Bruce Springsteen and Clarence Clemmons. 

Sure, it says Born to Run, but it really means born to walk around, for the foreseeable future, wearing a mask that, no matter what measures you take, ends up fogging your glasses. And which is a tiny bit difficult to breathe through, which is no big deal. It's just that it's easier to breathe through your nose (or, if you're a mouth-breather, through your mouth) when it's not covered with cloth, or paper, whatever the ply.

If COVID-19 has done nothing else, it's created a business opportunity for every Etsy dreamer with a sewing machine who's out there. 

But some have overstepped a bit. As in the entrepreneur who figured that Jethro Tull fans would want to show off their allegiance to the band. 

At least I'm assuming it's the band, and not the 17th-18th century British agronomist for whom the band is named. And Jethro Tull, the band, is thinking the same. Because, once they saw that someone was out there selling masks for those who wanted to take an aqualung-ful through a JT mask, they issued the following statement:

It has come to our intention that others are trying to profit from the sale of Jethro Tull branded so-called face masks, some claiming to offer protection against the COVID disease. We wish to entirely disassociate ourselves from any such product.

I think they mean attention here, and not intention. But the point is made. And if you don't get the point, they even have an x'd out version of the mask pic on their website. 

You'd have to be thick as a brick to believe that all you need to do to prevent COVID is where a mask. But the current wisdom is that wearing a mask - especially when inside and exposed to others outside your bubble, or outside in a non-socially distanced situation - does some good. And I'm living in a highly compliant city, that has had high instances of coronavirus, and that's seeing it's numbers heading in the right direction. Thanks in part, no doubt, to our gold-star-on-the-forehead compliance with the mask requirements. 

So I'll keep up with the wearing of the mask. And keep up with the 20-second washing of the hands thang. And occasionally swabbing my doorknobs and lightswitches with disinfectant. And the stay out of crowds.

While still hoping that I have already had, or will shortly contract, a super-mild version of COVID-19 that will grant me at least some immunity.

Imagine, there's even a mask for that thought...