Tennessee Gas Station Cabernet

 I was down in East Nashville in the afternoon for coffee. We had, must have been, two inches of rain in mere minutes earlier. Downtown Madison instantly flooded. Moms driving SUVs pulled over on Briley. Now, on my way home, back in Madison, light rain, it was suddenly dark. Turned the clocks back this week.

I decided not to do any shopping but just head straight down Neelys Bend.

Coming up on the Mapco, thoughts of something sweet entered my consciousness. I thought, “It’s Friday. I could get a couple of Lotto tickets. Yes. I won’t be out again.” So, before exiting Neelys, I slowed,  left acrost Neelys, and glided into the far-right spot against the chain-link fence.

Now, nicotine, speaking softly from just out of sight. “Just one,” it said. “Just this evening. You might do a bit more work.”

No one will recognize me at the Mapco, down Neelys, on Friday evening, buying sweets in a gas station, and standing in line to purchase Lotto Tickets, and nicotine whispering in my ear.

In front of me, a young man, of the type you see in Tennessee, tall, thin, broad shoulders, Carhartt pocket T, cowboy boots, trucker’s cap. He was buying wine, I see.

Two bottles of Tennessee Gas Station Cabernet.

And a six-pack of peppermint Zyn.

Three Guys

The Shirt

The early-mid-aughts are over twenty years ago now. I got sober (again) in 2001, and my friend Charlie P. set me up for a service position. I took an AA meeting into a medical detox in midtown Manhattan near Carnegie Hall on Tuesday nights.

Back then, I was still sort of a big shot working on Wall Street. I still wore the uniform: a grey wool suit, a white button-down Brooks Brothers cotton shirt, and black Church's tassel loafers, a Hermès tie. I had a great collection of Hermès ties. I lived in a tiny apartment on York Ave in the 80s, but my wife and daughter lived full-time up at the farm in East Durham. I'd take the train up on Friday evening and back on Monday morning.

I carried personal cards with my name, cell phone, and personal email to give to people I met at AA meetings so they could contact me if they needed to. I also handed them out at the detox meeting.

One afternoon, I got a call from one of the guys I'd met at the detox. I'd remembered him as a well-spoken, handsome young black man, said he lived in Harlem. He said he had been living in a halfway house in downtown Manhattan since he got out of detox. He told me that his grandma had died. He said he had no dress clothes, and wondered if I could help him get a shirt so he could go to his grandmother's funeral. I asked him what his shirt size was and told him I'd get him a shirt and meet him at the halfway house the next day.

The next day, at lunch, I visited a local men's shop downtown, bought a shirt, and then met him at the halfway house. He was effusively grateful when I showed up. I handed him a bag with the shirt, and he thanked me again.

Then he explained that he needed forty bucks in cash so he could take a taxi to the funeral.

I took a subway token out of my pocket and told him to lose my number.

The Ring

At the north end of East Nashville (locals call the neighborhood Ingelwood) is a series of highway interchanges, Galatin Pike (31E) to Briley Parkway (155), Briley Parkway (155) to Ellington Parkway (31E), Interstate 65, and Interstate 24 mix and match in an engineering nightmare. Hundred-acre interchange after hundred-acre interchange of high-speed, modern automobile traffic leaves a driver lost without bearings. Google Maps is horrible in these interchanges.

One afternoon, I'm on my way to an appointment, not late, plenty of time to make it. However, I need to traverse the above-mentioned interchanges. As I circle down a loopy ramp, I notice a man waving. He's wearing dress slacks and shoes, a collared shirt in a snappy color (mango, saffron, tumeric?), and a full head of black hair, barbered, combed, and clean-shaven, standing near a dark-colored crossover SUV of the current type.

I hit the brakes, checking my rearview mirror is empty, and pull over a few feet in front of him. I have no concern for my own safety, don't really imagine what I can do to help, but perhaps I can. I don't carry cash - I should. I haven't had use for it since COVID. There's a BP station, a 10-minute round trip back on Gallatin, but I don't have a can. My niece wandered off with my jump pack a couple of weeks ago. Help change a flat? I roll down my window.

As he approaches, he places his right hand over his heart and says something like "salam alaikum". I'd heard that before on old Law & Order reruns or some Iraq War era movie. The 13th Warrior? It bothers me.

I say, "What's up?" 

He starts into a story about his family and the car. I cut him off.

I ask, "How can I help?"

He takes a very large chunk of a gold ring from the pinky on his left hand and shows it to me. "Collateral", I think. Now I am offended. I've watched Better Call Saul too many times. I get images of Slipin' Jimmy. 

I say, "Sorry, I can't help." I close the window and drive off.

Diabetus

Summer. In the afternoon, I went to the CVS in Madison to pick up my prescription. I'd been there before, pre-COVID, I'd used their drop-in clinic. I'd remembered it as clean, well-stocked, professionally staffed, and busy.

It was no longer clean; the shelves were shopworn, the staff at the checkout were missing, and an old woman in apparent cognitive decline was bumping into aisle end caps with her wheelchair.

I stepped out into the August afternoon heat and headed to my car across the parking lot, blinking from the sun high on my right. I saw a large black man, about my age and weight, walking toward me up from Gallatin Avenue. He nodded at me. He was wearing dark blue nylon shorts, slides with socks, and a sweated-out Yankees t-shirt, no hat. I nodded back.

As I approached my car, he called to me, "Hey, guy?" I turned around and saw him standing in the shade by the CVS building. 

He said, "Can I ask you something?"

I said, "I don't carry money, other than that?"

He said he needed to get his diabetes medication filled. He showed me the lesions he had on his ankles (under his socks). 

Those are tracks from injecting heroin, I think to myself. I try to keep an open mind. The guy showed me a prescription and said he needed $14.75 to refill it. 

"Let's go in and see," I say to him.

We go in, the old lady in the wheelchair is still circling, and we move to the Pharmacy in the back. The pharmacists are busy, so we line up.

I ask him, "Is this going to get me in trouble with the Pharmacist?"

"Probably," He says.

I tell him I'll be back and go to the front of the store looking for an ATM. I haven't used an ATM since before COVID. At the Kroger, you could always get $20 with no service fee when you paid for your groceries, but they stopped that a while ago. It took me a while to get the $20 with a $3.50 service fee from the ATM.

As I turn around, the guy is on his way out. "The Pharmacist says I have to go to the community health center in Donelson to get this filled."

Donelson is going to be an hour, at least, each way by bus. Not something I'd look forward to in this heat.

I hand him the $20 and say, "Take care of yourself." I don't feel good about it.

The Homecoming Show

In the fall of my freshman year of high school, I auditioned to be in the band for the homecoming show. The homecoming show was a student-written, student-produced comedy show along the lines of SNL. It was the first time I had auditioned for anything. 

I walked into the audition room, dragging the high school's old plywood gut string, string bass, that I had played in Orchestra. 

The music director, a woman in her twenties (wearing a brown suede suit with fringed sleeves and back) who had recently graduated from the school, and a senior man (with a gigantic mop of curly black hair) were jamming on guitars. I distinctly remember her Martin Dreadnaught and the enormous ringing sound it made. The guy was playing lead riffs on an OM-style Guild acoustic, but not quite in the league of the music director's - probably some CSNY tune.

I wanted to check my tuning, so I very quietly tried the harmonic on my G and D strings.

When they finished, the director turned to me and said, "Hey, what you were playing there, that sounded great!" The guy nodded in stoned agreement. I got the gig.

Mapco

Some guy got shot and retired from the game Saturday morning at the Mapco, a little over a quarter of a mile from my house. 

As I drove past the Mapco coming home Saturday morning, I noticed eight or so Metro Nashville Police Department Ford Explorers arranged randomly in the parking lot. I mentioned it to my wife on Sunday when I remembered, and then tried googling for the story.

The Mapco on Neelys Bend is about three miles down from Gallatin Pike. South of the Mapco, Neelys Bend starts to transform into farmland, then into a city park at the flood-prone end. Neelys Bend Road ends at the Cumberland River. There is no crossing from here.

The section of Neelys Bend coming down from Gallatin Pike is a heavily traveled two-lane road, and more or less, the only way in or out. In large stretches, there is no shoulder. Sober, the walk up Neelys Bend to Gallatin Pike would be unpleasant.

At the Gallatin Pike intersection is a large Methodist church with a homeless shelter and various treatment and outreach programs. Once a week, a "Shower Bus" parks there.

The other side of Gallatin Pike has a Bojangles and a dying strip mall featuring a drive-through only Chase bank, a blood donation center, a Dollar General, a pawn shop, and a furniture rental store. The Fresh Market there has a surprisingly good Quesabirria. An LGBTQ+ friendly Vape store is just a few blocks down Gallatin Pike by the Kroger. 

Anyway, Saturday morning, some Mapco customers observed one individual acting disorderly and asking patrons for a ride up Neely's Bend. The police report that a disagreement occurred between the disorderly individual and a Mapco patron when gunfire broke out. The Mapco patron left the scene.

The police at the scene rendered aid to the formerly disorderly individual and transported him to a nearby hospital, where he died.

This is Tennessee. Discression and courtesy are important considerations in your public interactions.

Flashback from the hell of commuting in New York

I'm sitting in the front (quiet) car of a commuter train heading north along the Hudson River a bit after 6:00 in the evening. 

I'm wearing the clothes I put on after showering at 5:30 that morning to catch the 5:45 train to Grand Central so I could be at my desk by the 7:00 pick-up of trading from London.

I'm shoulder-to-shoulder with some guy who has sat in the seat next to me on previous occasions.

I'm sweaty from the rush to catch the train. I am desperate to take off my shoes. I am desperate to shower, brush my teeth, and put on a clean cotton T-shirt, jeans, and socks.

The phone in the pocket of the stranger next to me rings. He looks at me and says, "I have to take this."

I don't want to go to jail. I don't want to get fired for assaulting a fellow commuter. This mother f#cker has run this game three times before on me.

How I Get My News

My freshman year at Oberlin, on my way to piano class my piano teacher asked me, “so did you hear we have a new president?” I said, “Oh shit! Did Danenberg die?” No, my teacher explained “Jimmy Carter beat Gerald Ford in the yesterday's election”.

When I started working in New York in the early 80's I didn’t really pay attention to the news, read newspapers or watch television. If I did read a paper I was more likely to read the Post or the Daily News to pass the time at work or riding the subway. When I started trading in ’84 I learned pretty quickly that I had to pay attention to the news and started reading the New York Times on my way to work. I moved to Chicago in '86 but still read the New York Times for a while. I would buy it at a news stand in the loop and read it before trading started. Then one morning a trader bumped into me on the escalator to the trading floor and mentioned, tapping the paper with his knuckle; “we don’t have a communist problem here at the CBOT”.

At the CBOT, the exchange had installed giant Trans-Lux screens that scrolled real time Reuters headlines on the trading floor and terminals where I could pull the complete story if I wanted it. I do remember how hard it was to make sense of the ’87 crash. Network news aired what amounted to headlines for 30 minutes at 5:00pm in Chicago. Newspaper writers (NYT, WSJ, Tribune) were clueless about what was actually going on between New York and Chicago. I didn’t understand it back then but the journalist knew less about the situation than I did and generally lacked any of the background in economics and finance necessary to properly explain it. Back then the news weeklies (TIME, Newsweek, US News, Economist) provided an adequate recap and semi –competent analysis but it was not news by the time I read it.

A girl I was seeing said to me; “the sexiest thing in the world is a man who reads the Economist and can talk about volatility”. I swear to god she said that…so I read the Economist fairly religiously for a long time. I would buy it at a news stand and read it over coffee on Saturday morning. I did try subscribing to the Economist only briefly. I canceled because it wouldn’t be delivered until Monday and by Monday evening it was last week’s edition as far as I was concerned. For the same reason I’ve never subscribed to the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal – they can’t seem to deliver their product to me until after I’ve read it. I refuse to subscribe to the electronic editions because they are bundled with a dead tree edition that would go directly to the recycling bin.

After finishing my undergraduate degree at Northwestern I moved over to the CME in late ’89. I ran into Leo Malamud on the floor one day and suggested that the exchange get a cable subscription; there were “complication”, he explained. Just prior to the first gulf war the CME installed CNN on cable in the break room just off the trading floor. I remember standing there in the jammed break room one afternoon listening to a State Department spokesman who said: “Unfortunately…”. The break room emptied and the currency markets exploded. That evening John Holliman - CNN’s science correspondent – was in Baghdad for “shock and awe”. Bernard Shaw – CNN’s anchor -was hiding under the bed while Holliman hung out the window of his hotel room giving play by play. I was hooked on cable news for the next fifteen years.

By the mid ‘90s back in New York City I was reading the Wall Street Journal every morning (purchasing it from the guy that watched the papers for the news stand around the corner on Madison avenue before catching a taxi down to wall street). After 9/11 I watched cable news around the clock for days.

Around that time I stopped reading the Economist, it having gone progressive. I mentioned to my sister one day how CNN had become too left wing to me. Her matter-of-fact response was: “CNN is right wing”. Long about “W”s second term I stopped watching cable news completely. It had by then become all bloviating pundits. At a risk management conference I attended in 2007 I was pointed to the video of Jim Cramer (who I could not stand) ranting about how clueless the fed was about the state of the economy. I went home and watched it and It did scare me, but everywhere I looked the opposite seemed true. I did not work in securitization or credit derivatives, and found the people associated with them the most craven sort and avoided the subject. So the 2008 crash caught me completely unaware.

I continued reading the Wall Street Journal which I bought at a news stand every morning for a very long time. When Amazon offered its “Kindle” edition back in 2010 or so I subscribed to it for about a year and a half. I could download the WSJ to my Kindle every morning and read it on the train. Then Amazon or the WSJ broke the Kindle edition – requiring a network connection for anything more than headlines – and I canceled my subscription. Back then mobile data was useless on my commute. I haven’t read the Journal since.

I have Reuters (globalist) and Bloomberg (progressive) terminals on my desktop at work. I have no need for news after that. I read articles pointed to by bloggers and aggregation sites. My favorite aggregator is Hacker News (tech progressive / libertarian) and RealClear Politics and Markets (seem to try to show a broad range of opinion) . I look at Marginal Revolution most days (progressive academic) and Instapundit (libertarian law professor) every day. My wife Patricia subscribes to the Sunday New York Times. I have found that, for the most part, all the articles in the Sunday times have been tested on the internet before making the Sunday edition.

Disruptive Technology / Disruptive Innovation

Disruptive innovation grew out of the management consulting world of the second half of the nineteen nineties; McKinsey, BCG, and Anderson. Corporations were told they needed to innovate or be swept away by global competition. Technology promised, and global markets threatened. The banking 2008 crisis destroyed Wall Street's control of the economy. The iPhone 4 release in 2010 provided the initial platform. To that point, a mobile phone was a corporate perk, but the iPhone got millions of hipsters to shell out for one of their own.

So the west coast boys tried on their libertarian suits and went to work thinking up ways to disrupt stodgy, old-fashioned industries. They delivered stripped-down apps to hipster early adopters on their phones. The product was mostly information, a repackaging of the TV model for the twenty-first century or an app that brought together buyers and sellers.

Network effects allocated huge rewards to first movers. And that money was deemed to be the reward for bringing change to the old way of doing things; money is taken from the fat lazy old boomers and their golf-playing pensioner grandparents.

What the sellers were selling mostly was the leftovers from their now ruined physical lives; stuff, parking spaces, rides, rooms, rentals, gigs, personal services, and of course, sex; and buyers could get cheap stuff they wanted. The app builders took a piece from both sides, plus information about the market that they could resell.

The TV model stole the intellectual property of writers, musicians, artists, photographers, and filmmakers; then offered it out at a price of zero - conditional on the consumer giving up private information that could be sold to old-fashioned businesses. Not that the writers, musicians, etc., didn't set themselves up for confiscation. You can't offer a product to a global audience that has a zero marginal cost and expect to get $20 a copy; not for very long anyway - that's another story: twentieth-century property rights.

What the disruptors were disrupting was mostly state and local regulation and government. They were disrupting the institutions that granted certifications and operating licenses, set zoning regulations, controlled rents, and regulated wages and quality. Not that a lot of that stuff made a lot of economic sense; rent controls, minimum wages, beautician licenses, etc. However, they were the institutions of long-established civil agreements.

I don't have a lot of empathy for the owners of Google, Amazon, and Facebook or Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb.

I'm not entirely convinced they are entitled to their wealth or use it for anything but evil.

The second and third drafts will not be kind to the winners in the first two decades of the twenty-first century.