Wikipedia a Reliable Source ?
Wikipedia a Reliable Source ?
Wiki: A Global Community of Millions
Marc Robinson
Wikipedia is one of the most misunderstood, incorrectly cited, and most visited web communities in the entire history of the Internet. They are doing something right. Wiki was developed in 1994 by Ward Cunningham, whose intent was to create, “the simplest online database that could possibly work.” A Hawaiian word meaning ‘fast’, thus the original simplistic database, WikiWikiWeb, March 25 of 1995. Typically Wiki are used to create collaborative websites, community websites, personal note taking, corporate intranet, and knowledge management systems.
Collaborative topic associations are self-monitored (no formal peer review process) in this Open Source Software environment, interestingly enough, the accuracy is very similar to 100 year old Encyclopedia Britannica . Until 2009, the collaborators were largely free-style and unmonitored. Now, there are numerous information safeguards that users have at their disposal. First, there are indeed registered users and registered contributors, thus sourcing can be verified. Second, there is a source tab with bibliographic data and biographical data on the author of each entry. Third, there is a formal effort to hire many academics and researchers as Wiki Foundation staffers.
The community has grown rapidly and numerous growing pains are to be expected. The community has weeded out a number of malicious contributors including dozens of members of the U.S. Congress, whose IP addresses are now blocked from contributing via the Congressional office. Other malicious contributors that have their IP addresses blocked are the Christian Scientist movement, who on numerous occasions were found to blatantly modify academic scientific data to match their own agenda. Finally, there have been several Research Academics that have been embroiled in bitter battle with each other like Gladiators utilizing Wikipedia as their Sword and Shield, many IP addresses have been banned by the WIKI police!!
As an open source platform, the WIKIs of which these are the primary projects:
http://www.wikiversity.org/
Wikiversity is a community devoted to collaborative learning. We build learning resources from the ground up and also link to existing internet resources. Wikiversity uses wiki software, which makes collaboration easy. Wikiversity participants are continually improving the educational content of Wikiversity's pages.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/
he Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is a nonprofit charitable organization dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content, and to providing the full content of these wiki-based projects to the public free of charge. The Wikimedia Foundation operates some of the largest collaboratively edited reference projects in the world, including Wikipedia, the fourth most visited website in the world.
http://www.wikipedia.org/
a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its name is a portmanteau of the words wiki (a technology for creating collaborative websites, from the Hawaiian word wiki, meaning "quick") and encyclopedia. Wikipedia's 15 million articles (3.2 million in English) have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world, and almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site. It was launched in 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger and is currently the largest and most popular general reference work on the Internet.
http://www.wiktionary.org/
A collaborative project run by the Wikimedia Foundation to produce a free and complete dictionary (lexicon and thesaurus therein) in every language.
http://www.wikiquote.org/
Wikiquote aims to be an accurate and comprehensive collection of notable quotations. They can inspire us to seek to understand the people that uttered them, to consider the course of our own lives, to laugh, or merely to admire their mastery of language. However we use them, they will exist forever as a summary of the collective insights of society, communal knowledge passed on from one generation to the next.
http://www.wikibooks.org/
Wikibooks is a collection of open-content textbooks that anyone, including you, can edit right now by clicking on the edit this page link that appears near the top of each Wikibooks module. Contributors maintain the property rights to their contributions,
http://www.wikisource.org/
Wikisource is a Free Library of source texts which are in the public domain or legally available for free redistribution. Wikisource is an official project of the Wikimedia Foundation and a sister project of Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
http://www.wikinews.org/
To present up-to-date, relevant, newsworthy and entertaining content without bias.
Wikinews promotes the idea of participatory journalism because of the belief that citizens know what is news like no others. You are invited to join in this effort, and share news that is of interest to you. All Wikinews articles are created by everyday people just like you, from around the globe.
The Wikinews project is a free content news source of the Wikimedia Foundation that seeks to provide content, free of charge, where everyone is invited to contribute reports about events large and small, either from direct experience, or summarized from elsewhere. Wikinews is founded on the idea to build a unique news environment to enrich the media landscape.
http://species.wikimedia.org/
Wikispecies is a wiki-based online project supported by the Wikimedia Foundation. Its aim is to create a comprehensive free contentcatalogue of all species and is directed at scientists, rather than at the general public. Jimmy Wales, chairman emeritus of the Wikimedia Foundation, stated that editors are not required to fax in their degrees, but that submissions will have to pass muster with a technical audience.
http://mediawiki.org/
MediaWiki is a free software wiki package written in PHP, originally for use on Wikipedia. It is now used by several other projects of the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation and bymany other wikis, including this website, the home of MediaWiki.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/
the global community site for the Wikimedia Foundation's projects, and coordination and documentation of related projects. For further discussion of the cross-project policies and events,
http://commons.wikimedia.org/
A database of 6,269,580 freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute. The Commons is an online repository of images, sound and other media files.
http://incubator.wikimedia.org/
is where potential Wikimedia Foundation wikis of existing Wikimedia projects (Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Wikiquote and Wikinews – Wikisource and Wikiversity have their own wikis) in additional languages should be arranged, written, tested, and proven worthy of Wikimedia hosting. Before its creation on 2 June 2006, the test projects were here at Meta.
There are no software licensing fees to pay to the Wikipedia or Wikimedia Foundation. It is not unusual to have many sources, comments, and edits under the Wikipedia entry, so it is very important to check the source bibliography for each and every wiki topic.
When we are listening to the naysayers of the Wiki Open Source Software and Platform it is important to note: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiversity/en/b/bc/Wiki.png
1) The Sources of information are principally from Academia and Research backgrounds. All primary edits and contributions must include registered users and bibliographic supporting data.
2) Accuracy is comparable to the Encyclopedia Britannica which is a very old, paid-subscription based service. Several studies have measured accuracy on a head- to-head basis, the average science entry in Wikipedia contained around four inaccuracies; the average science entry in Britannica, about three. Test sample size was 42 entries. Note : Wiki network contains 42 million entries.
3) Most Importantly, 1911 was the original release of Encyclopedia Britannica. Wikipedia was released by Jimmy Wales and the Wikimedia Foundation in June of 2003. It is amazing that their accuracy ratings are so similar considering the difference in age and prestige in their respective communities.
4) Notable movements in 2010, Google donated $ 2million on 02.17.2010
Other donation collected, $ 8million on 01.05.2010
Craigslist, Craig Newmark joins Wikimedia Foundation Advisory Board.
Wikimedia Foundation, St. Petersburg, Florida, United States
International non-profit organization dedicated to encouraging the growth and development of free content, multilingual, wiki-based projects,…
Focused on Empowering and Engaging people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free content license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally.
www.wikimediafoundation.org
blog.wikimedia.org
info@wikimedia.org
Phone: 415.839.6885
Post Office Box 78350
San Francisco, California 94107-8350
WIKIPEDIA, WIKIMEDIA COMMONS, WIKTIONARY, WIKISOURCE, WIKIQUOTE, WIKIBOOKS, WIKINEWS, WIKIPOCK, WIKIVERSITY: to name just a few, many more to come
Bibliography
Adler, B. T. (2007). Assigning Trust to Wikipedia Content. Technical Report. School of Engineering UCLA. UCSC-CRL-07-09.
Capocci, A. (2008). Collaberative systems: The case of on-line encyclopedia Wikipedia. Europhysics Letters, 01-01-2008, pp 28006
Dondio, P.S. Extracting Trust From Domain Analysis. A Case Study on Wikipedia. (2006) ATC, pp. 362-373.
English, (2007). Wikipedia9s) on the language map of the world. English Today. , Vol. 23, Issue 2, April 2007, pp.3-8
Fallis, D. (2008). Toward an epistemology of Wikipedia. Journal of Am Soc for Info Science and Tech. 08-08-08, pp. 1662-1674.
Giles, J. (2005, December 15). Internet Encyclopaedias Go Head to Head. Nature 438, pp. 900-901.
Josand, A. (2007). A survey of Trust and Reputation Systems for Online Services. Decision Support Systems, pp. 68-644.
Korsgaard, T. R. (2009). Re-engineering the Wikipedia for Reputation. Science Direct, pp. 81-94.
Lim, S. (2009, November). How and Why do College Students Use Wikipedia? Journal of the Am. Soc. for Info. Science and Tech., pp. 2189-2002.
Orlowwski, A. (2006). Avoid Wikipedia: Warns Wikipedia Chief. The Register.
Pascale, C. (2009, June 7). BBC Reports that Wikipedia is Reliable. Educational Issues.
Rector, Lucy Holman (2008). Comp. of Wikipedia for accuracy. Reference Services Review. Issue 1, 2008, Vol. 36, pp.7-22.
Santana, Adele. (2009). Transparency and Social Responsibility issues for Wikipedia. Ehtics and Inform. Tech., Vol. 11, Issue 2, June 2009, pp.133-144.
Seigneur, J.-M. (2003) End-to-End Trust in Pervasive Computing. Boppard, Germany, 2003.
Utter, D.A. (May 2007). Wikipedia Bans Congress. Webpronews, May 28, 2007.
Zaihrayeu, I., (2005). Iwtrust: Improving user trust in answers from the web. Rocquencourt, France, pp 384-392.
Not a Source at all ! Marc Robinson Page 9
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Dr. Maya Angelou Takes OSU by Storm !
Dr. Maya Angelou, is a Rainbow in the Cloud’s of many. Sixty-five Doctoral Degrees later, she is a vibrant, alive, example, of the American Dream come to real life. Dr. Angelou is a songwriter, author, composer, educator, poetess, Grammy Winner, and Multi-Lingual Interpreter to the United Nations, having written and performed for President Clinton’s Inauguration, Written the Anthem for the 50th Anniversary for the United Nations, Performed in many movies, written songs for numerous Top 50 Billboard artists.. She is a current Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University. As the French say, ‘she has reached a certain age’, (ie. Seventy something approaching eighty).
She was substantially raised in Stamps, Arkansas; one of the poorest rural areas in the entire United States of America. She was primarily raised by her mother’s mother (4th grade education) and her mother’s brother, (local general’s store owner for poor blacks), Uncle Willie aka Crippled Willie. At the age of three she and her brother were told that her mother and father were separating and she and her brother were bagged and tagged and stuck on a train from Los Angeles, unsupervised in the 1920’s, transferred like baggage several times until they reached Stamps, Arkansas.
At the age of seven she was sexually attacked by her mother’s boyfriend in St. Louis, then once again returned to Stamps Arkansas, where she remained mute until the age of fourteen. Upon speaking again, she immediately pursued poetry, writing, languages, and boys at the tender age of sixteen when she graduated early and found herself pregnant with her first born. She mastered more than a dozen languages; Spanish, French, Arabic, Fanti, Serbo-Croat, Swedish, among others.
She practices a very rare philosophy in our culture, Terance, Rome circa 154 b.c.”Nothing Human Can be Alien to Me!” He was a slave from Africa, and one of the most celebrated authors of his time. He was the property of a Roman Senator who freed him to pursue his studies and his publications. She told us her stories, shared her experiences through; oratory, recitation from memory (Langston Hughes, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, and her own pieces), chanting, and singing. She almost never looked at her notes or her books over the 100 minutes of her Oral. Some talk about how smart they are, Dr. Maya Angelou is a living and breathing example of a scholarly, intelligent, and caring human being.
Dr. Angelou asked us to consider reading all cultures. Blacks read Asiatics, Whites read Hispanics, Asiatics read Blacks, Hispanics read Gays, Heterosexuals read Lesbians. “Be Educated vs. Trained”, ‘It is our job as students to pay it forward for the next generation of students to enter these halls’. When we pass one another, say ‘Good Morning’ , it does make a huge difference to someone else’s day.
“We are members of the human family!” She appealed to the audience to put an end to sexism and racism. She further commented on liberation for; females, gays, all religious backgrounds, all ethnicities; “Stop it, Don’t be ignorant all your life! At our very best we are human.” She espouses pride and tolerance, no racism, no separation, no sexism. Peace and love via education! ‘Be the Rainbow in Someone’s Cloud. Each of us is a child of God!’ She clearly admonished us all; “WHEN YOU GET, GIVE ! WHEN YOU LEARN, TEACH ! BE THE RAINBOW IN SOMEONE’S CLOUD!
3/13/2010
Marc Robinson | The Ohio State University
My American greed began on a Saturday afternoon, as I was hanging out in the Amish country off SR 79, just outside of the Licking County Line, with the Order of the Arrow, Honor Scouting Troop. I was enjoying the peace and solitude of the forest when I was startled back into my real world by a text from home, New York City. My partner in crime was a big Wall Street guru and Stock Market Maker, Bill. An Army brat and former petroleum jockey for the Army Logistics brass at the Pentagon, Bill had made it big after attending Harvard in Business Administration and earning his MBA at a very early age. Bill was my Account Manager, working for Laidlaw Securities, a member of the Royal family of Wall Street and owned by the Royal family of Brunei, son of King Bulkia (the father of ), the Sultan of Brunei.
That particular Saturday, Bill had an Administrative emergency that he needed me to structure up for the client, outside of the banking environment and absent oversight and restrictions. The client was sponsored by Newt, out of Marietta, Georgia, and needed a guiding hand to set the profile and the Home Office of this Non-Profit Trust for Indigenous people, Indians, not just American but global indigenous tribes from former European and Asiatic colonies also. They were cash rich and talent poor, this Tribal Alliance had Trust funds from: Casinos, tax-free Gas Stations, and Hotel-Resort Operations all over the United States, the European Union, and Asia.
I was a specialist. I was classified as an introducer-arranger in the financial parlayance. In reality I structured leveraged asset deals to benefit the house more than the client, Financial Structure like : 1.) A Client Trust or Corporation would inquire about high-yield investments or require project funding, referred by contacts at a commercial bank, insurance company, or investment bank. 2) I would meet with the principal (s), assess their RWAs: Ready, Willing, and Able to come to the table with Liquid Assets or Cash. 3.) I would prepare a ‘SIT REP’ to my principal clients, and a proposal to the client. 4.) The client would tender their letter of intent and I would bring them in to open an investment banking account with my selected broker or registered agent. 5.) We would begin a structure for funding, leveraging the clients’ existing assets. 6.) I was paid a percentage plus a weekly expense account for bringing the client to the table [‘the raping and pillaging of America’]. 7.) Once the introduction and arrangement phase was complete, the large investment bankers took over the clients’ affairs, exploited every possible asset, angle and credit for which I was paid again a percentage of ‘the deal’ [what-so-ever that meant?]
Note to self: I was not a banker, nor a registered securities broker, nor a licensed stock trader, nor a registered investment advisor. I was a professional money pimp, credit parasite, and a professional dinner companion for the rich and famous.
I had been entombed in Ohio for nearly three years solid doing the nine to five grind for a very meager wage, and I needed a little excitement and a real job. I was born and bred, out in a more rural area in Long Island, New York. I came to Ohio to complete college and met a girl that rocked my world. She was working in sports training and sports medicine and I was a competitive lifter. We had two wonderful kids and a decent life. But, I had a deep dark secret life that I hid from her and her ideals of traditional rural-middle class family life in my devious mind; I was completely and entirely influenced by the Toys. When someone wants me to do something for them I require cash in advance i.e. escrow. Several of my clients began to call me Escrow and to this day it fits me. So when Bill called me from the city, he was an answer to my prayer, deliverance from suburban mediocrity. A triumphant return home, a good cash assignment (8% Commission for all assets tabled), with some television, newspaper, and International news wire coverage could have brought me a leg up in career and in my personal finances too.
I felt an urgency like I had never before felt; I had immediately packed up our tent city. I gathered up my Honor Scouts and packed my Black 8.4 L Turbo charged Cummins Diesel Ford Excursion Limited. and my Black Wells Cargo motorcycle trailer, loaded my Black Yamaha Quad and my Jet Black Yamaha dirt bike, and all of the camp gear that remained in our Amish Country Tent City. I had contacted the parents to let them know that we would be returning early as I had received an emergency call to return to the city immediately. When the Black Sheep, our Order of the Arrow (boy scouts of America) dance team, had come in from their hike through the forest, I had already broken camp. I did not want to waste any time or energy milling around. There had been cash on the table in New York. Why was I out in the woods of Ohio?
My sense of commitment to my country, to lead this international effort to sweep and manage the indigenous people assets around the globe, to help those groups leverage their assets and provide a better life for their people, my calling was crystal clear, or so I deluded myself. The United States of America was in the lead, and my loyalty to Bill had taken precedence over my civic duties to the Simon Kenton Council of the Boy Scouts of America, and their subsidiary Order of the Arrow. I had, however, enjoyed my free time with my Scouting brothers and sisters out in the Amish Country. God Bless the land of fame and fortune New York and Washington had needed me! My son and his closest buddies were not very happy about it but I agreed to pump the Limp Bizkit and koRn all the way back to New Albany as payment for my egregious sin of breaking camp thirty-one hours pre-maturely.
The flight out was late night and eerily quiet. I felt so isolated and alone, it was like I was on a flight to nowhere rather than on my way to my hometown, to the largest megalopolis on the planet, twenty-four million transient inhabitants within forty-five minutes of our nuclear city. I had no idea that the real ride had begun as soon as I hit the ground at La Guardia International.
The black bulletproof stretch navigator sat at the curb, armed bodyguard-driver at the ready with my name emblazoned across his chest on a whiteboard. He quickly approached me as if he knew me. I had dressed the part, Midnight Arrival, Black Conservative three-piece suit and Black tie with Silver Metallic Highlights complete with my designer prescription Black Glasses Tinted black, not something I would have worn at my old gig, as the conservative Premium Director for H & R Block’s Business Center. The porter followed with my luggage rapidly to be sure he earned a twenty spot for his trouble. It was a slow Sunday morning at 0115 hrs. at La Guardia International US Air Terminal. The porter had quickly loaded up the trunk and I had paid him 25 USD. He was a young Hispanic, he worked efficiently, and I was going to utilize his services on many occasions. As I am also part Hispanic I felt a certain loyalty to the porter; we always take care of our paisons.
As the cavernous stretch took her leave of La Guardia, I noticed that Carl (Billy Joel’s Driver-Defenseman that we were lucky enough to secure regularly over several years) kept looking at the interior mirror like he was sizing me up, like someone had given him a dossier on my purpose and my intent for the project at hand. I admittedly had no earthly idea what I had signed up for, I only knew that with my conservative administration in place and a conservative in office on Pennsylvania Avenue there was a lot of money on the table and I clearly had the luggage to hall every bit and morsel to Geneva for safe keeping. The ride was a mixture of anxiety and fear. I was nervous, I hadn’t received many calls for action from Pennsylvania Avenue but their message was loud and clear; Newt had signed their Charter on Friday, and they need covert funding and a complete corporate profile by the time the article hit the Post and the Journal on Monday morning. They would pull out all the stops to be sure that my team had full access to any and all available resources to establish, operate, and maintain “the United Tribal Alliance and subsidiary Central Banking Operations,” whatever the fuck that was.
We arrived at “the Mark,” located on Lexington Avenue in the midtown banking district, a tony but very private five-star hotel rated in the $ 1k per night plus range, at the butt-crack of dawn, my six shiny German stainless-steel luggage in tow, even at 0315 hrs. The staff was in tip top shape with doorman, luggage porter, desk porter, and desk manager in attendance to get me set up in the FDR Suite right away. I flashed my ID at Heinrich, the Desk Manager, and before he read it he said, “Mr. Robinson, we have been expecting you your Suites have been prepared, Two Bedrooms, a Conference Room with video-conferencing and four-scrambled Broadband connections, Rooftop Garden with four benches, and fully equipped kitchen are ready for your inspection, your assistant Michelle Rae [whoever the hell that is] is en-suite and awaiting your orders. The bill has been taken care of for the duration of your stay and future stays as well. Thank You for this opportunity to serve you!” “Thank You!” I said. “Do all of your guest at the Mark receive this level of attention?” I asked. He responded, “No sir but we are aware that your work is important and we will be at your disposal 24 hours a day to handle your needs.
Ben and Jerry the luggage porter and his able assistant carried up my new German stainless steel luggage set and had a trolley to transport my computers and printer up to the FDR suite where my new 19 year old assistant, Michelle Rae, was ready, willing, and able to do anything she was instructed to do to make me happy. She was to be mine to utilize 24 hours a day on the three continents. We were booked to travel, without my prior knowledge or consent. Through all of the madness over the last twelve hours, I had forgotten to call into Mitch the Bitch, my drunken Regional Manager at the Block, to let him know that I fuckin’ hated his guts and I quit effective immediately, if not sooner. I knew when I took that temporary project assignment with “the United Tribal Alliance and subsidiary Central Banking that it was not temporary at all, but life altering as in for fucking ever and ever Amen.
Michelle Rae was a thermo-nuclear (very explosive and very hot) Blond Haired Green Eyed German chick, an intern and honor student from Columbia University uptown, who had specialized in International Relations in their pre-law program. I knew the minute I saw her I fully intended to sex her up long before sunlight. As I approached the living room I saw that Michelle Rae was already moved in to the bedroom on the left. Michelle Rae had the computers booted up and a series of newspaper articles on the white board. She also had a crate of financial documents on the conference table in very neat, apparently segregated stacks along with two brand new digital cell phones, one labeled New York and one labeled London, along with a pair of Red U.S. Passports with Gold Leaf writing on the covers.
I had been locked and loaded, (targeted to take this job) even before I got the first phone call. They knew I could not say no. Bill, the Private Investment Banker had worked for Army Logistics as a ‘Global Petroleum Asset Manager’ in the beltway, before he began his career at “DLJ”, on Wall Street. He still operated like I was one of his lieutenants going into the battle zone. I could not have refused this assignment, if I wanted to. They had new phones New York and London, not in my name, and a shiny new Red Passport with my name and picture in it. They had even transferred a ten thousand dollar expense retainer to Ohio in advance of my arrival so that my automatic payments would be covered for the next six months. They had the receipt on the top of the briefing report that I was about to digest.
Michelle Rae broke out a fresh bottle of Courvoisier VVSOP, a very limited version of the famous Spirit, and stood to my left, perky Dolly Parton breast at the ready and right at mouth height. I took the beverage that she offered, although at the moment I really was not a drinker, which changed rapidly from that night forward. I weighed in on my impression of her setup and she explained her family and educational background as I caught a buzz and stared at her voluptuous love-triangle, I could taste the sweet Peach as she spoke about her business and political experiences at the tender young age of 19 years. She talked about her participation in the Young Republicans Club, which we had in common, her mother’s role on the RNC and her father’s partnership in a Sports Team franchise in Texas. Her accent had me wanting to mount and stuff her on the conference room table like a good Buck should. To my full and utter amazement, she took the papers out of my hand and showed me her bedroom suite off to the left of the conference room.
This was an experience that I had absolutely no intention of sharing with my family, most especially my lovely wife back in the flatlands of Gahanna, Ohio. Michelle Rae pushed me back on her bed, coverlet and all peeled my suit off and mounted my chest, pinning my arms to the bed with her lower leg while she rode my face with her upper thighs. She was a collegiate athlete, of that I was certain her body-fat percentage was less than 8%. She had me signed and closed from the moment I got off the elevator and now she sat on my face in her bed, as I prepared to eat, finger, and fill her voluptuous love-triangle, repeatedly and often.
As the daylight rose off to the east side of her bedroom, she said we were due down on the second floor at 0815 hrs. I moved slowly at first to hit the shower and change suits, she told me that, ‘I was to join her in her bathroom now!’ I was a soldier and so I followed her orders directly and without delay. Her expert but firm hands lathered me up with a liquid sports soap that she rubbed all over my back and buns as the steaming hot water shot out of the front and back nozzles of the granite covered triple shower simultaneously. She mounted me from the rear and grabbed my Jonathan Henry Higginbotham as it was her own personal, private, property. She acted surprised to feel that he was at full attention as she jacked-him-off took playful bites out of my ears and my neck and rubbed soap on my chest simultaneously, all from my rear. Wow, I thought at the time, I am never going back to H & R Block again, ever. The Block never even gave me a gold watch let alone a travelling nymphomaniac with an expense account, for my own personal concubine “Executive Assistant”. My assistant at Block was not attractive at all. She was in possession of a bad attitude and a substantially worn out body after having six puppies not attractive at all. She was in possession not. Not quite my speed for a Travel Companion, Executive Personal Assistant, or My Fuck Buddy.
As Michelle Rae and I arrived on the second floor I saw a distinguished looking group of a mixture of National Origins speaking English in very different dialects. There were representatives of various Indigenous Trusts from Australia, England, Asian Peninsula, Canadian Indian Tribes, American Indian Tribes and a manager from their resort and gambling operations. Raj was a British accent Indian dude, very hip middle aged and blinging to high heaven like a Jet Black Porsche 911 Gemballa wide-body. I later found out he was a tribal prince who was instrumental in closing the Australian Trust Fund deal with the United Kingdom who owed them treaty payments on mercantile shipping for the past 200 years due and payable in full. I could smell the money before I ever sat down. This little tribe of Indians represented well over $ 8 Billion in revenue per annum. I had found my Aradia, the goddess-daughter of Diana and Lucifer.
As we concluded making arrangements with the Indigenous group assembled before us to commit to depository asset management inside the sub-accounts of the United Tribal Alliance, we began with the Investment Bank of the Presidents: Donaldson, Lufkin, and Jenrette (D,L,J) [now Credit Suisse-Union Bank of Switzerland]. I called Bill from the table with the new clients and he said that he knew I would close them. I told him not quite yet, we are on the way across the street to see him at the Park Avenue HeadQuarters with the new clients for the United Tribal Alliance sub-accounts, and their initial opening deposits of 18,000,000 USD.
As we entered the lobby at D, L, J the security was like Fort Knox. Blue suit dudes with Gloves and Security Badges were all over the building. We were stopped at the check in counter when Bill and his very able-bodied Executive Assistant Katie came to rescue us from the Gestapo. It was not every day that they had non-whites coming into their building, absent an apron and broom. They seemed affronted when the team took us up to the rooftop dining room of the President of the Bank.
The International group of Indigenous clients were quite impressed with their view of all of Park Avenue in both directions. The Vanderbilt, the Trump, J.P. Morgan-Chase, Bear-Stearns, Bank of New York, Kuwaiti National Bank, Citibank and many more just outside the window. It was painfully obvious that they had not previous eaten in a $ 1k a plate for lunch establishment before. We were served eight courses for lunch and that did not include the post-lunch dessert, or the lunch hour cocktails. When we finished, I noticed that there were no other non-whites or women in the room. Very interesting on the top floor of one of the oldest government sponsored safe-house on earth and they only allow White Anglo Saxon Protestants Males to dine I perpetuated a system filled with Racism, Classism, Sexism, and Parasitism. I was very good at my job and the pay was very good too! I had a closing ratio of 100%. But, I was very young and very naïve in the Private International Banking World. I knew something was not right. But it was a job that someone was going to do; it may as well be me. My Cash was on the table.
. C’est la vie, I didn’t give a shit as long as I got my 8% of the deposit for my real client, The United Tribal Alliance et. al. That is Commission of 1,440,000.USD for taking these dudes to breakfast and lunch, four hours work total. They each tendered their commitment for 80M more within 90 days], I dropped the deposits on Bill’s desk. Bill had Katie prepare some official receipt shit and I took the documents to the clients in the conference room.
When I returned to the DLJ conference room I introduced them to Gail the illustriously nominated Chairwoman of the United Tribal Alliance. A very interesting tidbit, since she was an Albino with no Indian Blood at all and she came from the Backwoods of Georgia. With no political background, she was a former Agent for ‘the Company’ and had no other work history or references, except for a letter of recommendation from Ronnie Ray-gun from his office at Century City Plaza in Los Angeles. She looked like a ghost and she acted like a ghost, too. Gail had no substance of any kind she was transparent and empty like a bag of groceries from Pathmark before you buy anything. Too much make up, dramatic clothing with way too much ethnicity for any self-respecting southern belle. But, she had an ace in the whole; she was riding old Bill like a pogo stick on a daily basis. People with money are real gullible when the chick is sitting on their laps. Gail was very good at sitting on the clients’ laps, repeatedly and often. That’s what they seemed to want more than any return on their investment with her little organization, UTA.
As the Cashier’s Checks hit Bill’s desk, he had Katie send me a wire transfer in-house of course for $ 35,000.00, for our weekly expense account, which he and I shared 50/50, the first of a long series of payments designed to buy my loyalty, buy my silence, and reserve my soul for Lucifer.
The clients were happy, Gail was aloof as usual (nee Clueless), and Bill was extremely ready for me to hit the airport for round two. Mel was an Indiana Private Banker who had pissed off a number of people all over the securities industry. He was quite loaded and needed some mechanical assistance to handle a large number of receivables from God knew who, for God knew what, to do God’s will on the homeless and starving citizens of the former USSR. Housing, Jobs, Food, Clothing and Shelter he spouted as he handed me eight Cashier’s Checks for $ 1,000,000.00 each. Another day, another commission check for $ 640,000 for receiving this deposit and transporting it back to Billy the Kid on Park Avenue. Not a bad Monday-Tuesday, Gross Commissions of 2,080,000 in less than forty-eight hours time. We just may have hit the Rock and Roll mode I kind of liked that job. I had to get back to NYC and Michelle Rae so she could prepare me for Wednesday’s adventure. New York La Guardia please!
When I got back to ‘the Mark’, Michelle Rae had my briefing for Wednesday; Mel had called and had some clients with Russian Red and Raw Diamonds ready for deposit in Antwerp. I had to make time to call my dude Shimon in Israel, a government dude but very cool and laid back. Shimon set up a meeting in London and we reacquainted ourselves. We got the Russian military dudes to zip over to Geneva Suisse Grand and put our dudes at the table then make for the deposit in Antwerp. Naturally, I had arranged some Executive Assistants from the Saudi Arabian club on Lake Geneva, it is always much better to close them once they have tasted a few of your Executive Assistance. I assembled the entourage including Hebrew lawyers, have Billy open up a long distance off shore Diamond Depository Account up in Antwerp but administered in London. I dropped in the quick $ 40,000,000.00 into the CEIB and back to London to thank Shimon. Now we were cooking with gas. Oh the pressure I must had to get back to Michelle Rae at ‘the Mark’ and hit the Malls at Roosevelt Fields.
Okay it had passed the point of needing to move on from ‘the Mark’. Traffic was too consistent and we needed to split up the functions of the group. 1.) Operations with Gail and her pair of personal book ends Lars and Hans from the U.N. peacekeeping force moved down to General Motors at 42nd and Lexington 2.) Trust Services, Marc and Michelle Rae moved into the Kuwaiti Bank Building Law Offices on Park Avenue @ 56th Street, a law suite with three lawyers two paralegals and two reception areas. Residential-Corporate presence was established at the Sliver building on 40th and Madison Avenue. 3.) Bill remained at DLJ on Park Ave. Michelle Rae and I went shopping all over the 3 square miles of stores at Roosevelt Fields.
We bought furniture, fixtures, fine arts, antiques, and all the electronic gadgets we could need. 15 k for a glass 15 feet x 8 feet conference table for my living room, it had 12 High Back Leather Executive chairs. 10k for an antique desk for the foyer. 8k for a Leather Pit to seat 12, she found an entertainment center that was 12’ high and 15 feet long and filled that baby with all the digital gadgets that could be found, purchased, and fit in the center. We had days of deliverymen bringing gear on carts and on their backs down Madison Avenue. Manhattan was tough on parking but is even worse on delivery vehicles, so many blocks between the parking and the delivery of the goods was frequently an issue. Michelle Rae and I had the basic set up all together. The deliveries began just as the cash deposits picked up $ 8m here 20 m there, money begets money.
It had never occurred to me at the time, but not one client made a penny in the years of buying selling and shopping; ‘the house’ was the real benefactor and beneficiary too. They didn’t feel the need to share the profits from all the trades and investments with the clients who owned the assets or deposited their money with the house. Come to think of it, the Indigenous masses did not receive any benefit from their deposits either. Very strange role that I played; I just brought in the business whatever the client entity was. The whole operation was spearheaded by Bill; he was the only one who knew what was going to happen from one end to the other. He did not care to share that knowledge with Michelle Rae nor myself and frankly I preferred to operate on a needs to know basis anyway. I clearly did not want or need to know any more than I had known at the time; the less I knew overall the better I felt.
As I reflect on the culture of the time, I see how greedy and corrupt the system was and I became. Gobbling up the larger private banks, new issue nameplates being directed to those that “play the game” leaving the shareholders and account holders with pennies on the dollar were commonplace transactions in which we directly participated and benefitted financially. I was greedy, and I was corrupt. Just because it was the norm doesn’t make it okay for me to screw people as a daily function of my nine year temporary assignment. I will never sully myself that way ever again! I will not take advantage of the system or my clients in a dishonest way to benefit the house. I realize that I have taken a vow of poverty and normalcy. I realize that there are no 80 story condos in Columbus, nor are there a fleet of Stretch Navigators at my disposal anymore. I lost it all, my immediate family disintegrated, my health collapsed, I was smoking, I was drinking, I was drugging, a pill for every section of everyday in every country, reserving my way into an early grave. I watched a lot of people die around me, all of us with a common denominator=>other people’s money! (greed and gluttony).
My daughter Ashley called me in Switzerland. She asked, ‘Dad, when will you be home?’ I was in the midst of cleaning myself up after I had devoured one of the Anglo Russian concubines from the Casino at Lac Lu Main (Geneva) where I was entertaining a new Russian client.
I told her, “I don’t know pretty baby, I’m working”.
She said, “ You love money more than you love me !”
I was floored, I lost my breath, I lost my words, and I lost what was left of my blackened heart. My little girl woke me up, in my real life, to my real world. I packed my real shit in the travel trunks, packed the mobile office, and left the Dom Zuricher Hotel for good. No amount of Money or Love could replace the respect of my baby girl. That night I caught my flight back from Zurich to JFK Airport: New York on the Red Eye flight.
After losing all forms of trust with my family, my friends, my former wife; I find myself in a very strange place. I don’t trust anyone. I have been the victimized, I have been the parasite, and I don’t enjoy either role. My kids are the most important contribution that I have made to my community.
As I arrived at the train station in Pittsburgh I was looking to my left and saw a young version of myself standing with his arms folded over a white striped button down, black striped Euro tie, and completed with black Marc Echo half boots. I got a little bit teary that my son and my mother still had love for me after my extended absence. I grabbed this young version of myself and tried to lift him into the air. He picked me up off the floor, 240 lbs. and he lifted me like a bag of peat moss, quickly and with confidence. Brandon said, ‘Papa Smurf (a reference to my Chassidic-like beard) this is my job now!’ I said, “Put me down, I love you anyways!” My son chose a different path, to remain close to his family. He had decided to work in Medical claims for the insurance industry. He put himself through Ohio State and gained the necessary certifications to become an insurance claims representative in Dublin, Ohio. Although he does indeed favor me, he has chosen a career and a path that will not cause him to miss his sons’ first steps, his sons’ first soccer game, his sons’ first girlfriend, or his sons’ Prom.
My Mom was standing back and she was taking in this scene in broad daylight in Penn Station, she is crying, just a little bit. Brandon was living with my mom, since his dad was too busy in New York to get home him. Her prodigal son had returned to the family, bent on making up for his greed, his gluttony, and his abandonment of his familial duty. I was home, but I felt homeless. I was in a building full of people, but I felt all alone. My homecoming was not what I imagined but I was oddly at peace. As my baby boy drove us through the Allegheny Mountains, I explained how I have been accepted to study at the Ohio State University. Mom is all with the program as she is a career educator and her husband was an English scholar/professor instructing at the Ohio State and Cleveland State in Advanced English.
I have few regrets. However, my parents had aged, my kids had grown up without me, my ex-wife moved on, my friends died in horribly lonely and in unnatural incidents; Life keeps moving, even without me. W.T.F.?
What good I have done since leaving Midtown Manhattan and the world of Private International Banking? I volunteer 4 to 5 days per month at the Women and Children’s Refugee Center, and I recruit others for their help too. I Supervise community groups at Professional Sporting Events in Central Ohio; Columbus Clippers Baseball, Columbus Crew Soccer, and the Ohio State Buckeyes.
When it was all over, I am truly happy, I was happy not to be stressed out from doing the wrong thing all day, all the time, to all the clients. I was happy to not have to change my clothes three times in one afternoon to quell the stench and odor of decay from the inside out. Most importantly I was happy because I knew at the end of each and every day that I had done the best that I can do for the people around me that trust me and depend on me for my truthful and honest support. I had loved each and every friend, acquaintance and client served unselfishly in Agape. I am happy to be a part of a team and a member of my community, playing an integral part of making a difference for my peer group at each and every function that I attend and that I write up and submit.
I lift weight and run regularly. I do not smoke cigarettes. I don’t go clubbing every night. I don’t have a fancy house. I don’t have fancy cars. I don’t have eight to ten meetings every day. I don’t have any money. I am truly happy for the first time since George Herbert Walker Bush sat on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Most of all, my friends and family don’t have to worry about my safety and well- being, well not all the time. In Manhattan, life expectancy of the average introducer/arranger and broker was about 40 years for the average player. We had burned out, get burnt, or simply fade away. It is a great feeling to live again, to love again, and to cry again. I am living almost like a human again.
It is most interesting to be a part of something bigger than the next S.W.I.F.T. wire transfer protocol. I am proud to be a member of my campus community, to have a caring and supportive peer group.
He who dies with the most toys does not win the game, he dies alone. He, who gets out of the game, is the winner-takes-all victor in the game of life. This is not the end but a new beginning, my Phoenix!
Shalom Aleichem! (Hebrew Translation: Peace, May God’s Blessing be upon you.)
Marc
Marc Robinson | The Ohio State University
My American greed began on a Saturday afternoon, as I was hanging out in the Amish country off SR 79, just outside of the Licking County Line, with the Order of the Arrow, Honor Scouting Troop. I was enjoying the peace and solitude of the forest when I was startled back into my real world by a text from home, New York City. My partner in crime was a big Wall Street guru and Stock Market Maker, Bill. An Army brat and former petroleum jockey for the Army Logistics brass at the Pentagon, Bill had made it big after attending Harvard in Business Administration and earning his MBA at a very early age. Bill was my Account Manager, working for Laidlaw Securities, a member of the Royal family of Wall Street and owned by the Royal family of Brunei, son of King Bulkia (the father of ), the Sultan of Brunei.
That particular Saturday, Bill had an Administrative emergency that he needed me to structure up for the client, outside of the banking environment and absent oversight and restrictions. The client was sponsored by Newt, out of Marietta, Georgia, and needed a guiding hand to set the profile and the Home Office of this Non-Profit Trust for Indigenous people, Indians, not just American but global indigenous tribes from former European and Asiatic colonies also. They were cash rich and talent poor, this Tribal Alliance had Trust funds from: Casinos, tax-free Gas Stations, and Hotel-Resort Operations all over the United States, the European Union, and Asia.
I was a specialist. I was classified as an introducer-arranger in the financial parlayance. In reality I structured leveraged asset deals to benefit the house more than the client, Financial Structure like : 1.) A Client Trust or Corporation would inquire about high-yield investments or require project funding, referred by contacts at a commercial bank, insurance company, or investment bank. 2) I would meet with the principal (s), assess their RWAs: Ready, Willing, and Able to come to the table with Liquid Assets or Cash. 3.) I would prepare a ‘SIT REP’ to my principal clients, and a proposal to the client. 4.) The client would tender their letter of intent and I would bring them in to open an investment banking account with my selected broker or registered agent. 5.) We would begin a structure for funding, leveraging the clients’ existing assets. 6.) I was paid a percentage plus a weekly expense account for bringing the client to the table [‘the raping and pillaging of America’]. 7.) Once the introduction and arrangement phase was complete, the large investment bankers took over the clients’ affairs, exploited every possible asset, angle and credit for which I was paid again a percentage of ‘the deal’ [what-so-ever that meant?]
Note to self: I was not a banker, nor a registered securities broker, nor a licensed stock trader, nor a registered investment advisor. I was a professional money pimp, credit parasite, and a professional dinner companion for the rich and famous.
I had been entombed in Ohio for nearly three years solid doing the nine to five grind for a very meager wage, and I needed a little excitement and a real job. I was born and bred, out in a more rural area in Long Island, New York. I came to Ohio to complete college and met a girl that rocked my world. She was working in sports training and sports medicine and I was a competitive lifter. We had two wonderful kids and a decent life. But, I had a deep dark secret life that I hid from her and her ideals of traditional rural-middle class family life in my devious mind; I was completely and entirely influenced by the Toys. When someone wants me to do something for them I require cash in advance i.e. escrow. Several of my clients began to call me Escrow and to this day it fits me. So when Bill called me from the city, he was an answer to my prayer, deliverance from suburban mediocrity. A triumphant return home, a good cash assignment (8% Commission for all assets tabled), with some television, newspaper, and International news wire coverage could have brought me a leg up in career and in my personal finances too.
I felt an urgency like I had never before felt; I had immediately packed up our tent city. I gathered up my Honor Scouts and packed my Black 8.4 L Turbo charged Cummins Diesel Ford Excursion Limited. and my Black Wells Cargo motorcycle trailer, loaded my Black Yamaha Quad and my Jet Black Yamaha dirt bike, and all of the camp gear that remained in our Amish Country Tent City. I had contacted the parents to let them know that we would be returning early as I had received an emergency call to return to the city immediately. When the Black Sheep, our Order of the Arrow (boy scouts of America) dance team, had come in from their hike through the forest, I had already broken camp. I did not want to waste any time or energy milling around. There had been cash on the table in New York. Why was I out in the woods of Ohio?
My sense of commitment to my country, to lead this international effort to sweep and manage the indigenous people assets around the globe, to help those groups leverage their assets and provide a better life for their people, my calling was crystal clear, or so I deluded myself. The United States of America was in the lead, and my loyalty to Bill had taken precedence over my civic duties to the Simon Kenton Council of the Boy Scouts of America, and their subsidiary Order of the Arrow. I had, however, enjoyed my free time with my Scouting brothers and sisters out in the Amish Country. God Bless the land of fame and fortune New York and Washington had needed me! My son and his closest buddies were not very happy about it but I agreed to pump the Limp Bizkit and koRn all the way back to New Albany as payment for my egregious sin of breaking camp thirty-one hours pre-maturely.
The flight out was late night and eerily quiet. I felt so isolated and alone, it was like I was on a flight to nowhere rather than on my way to my hometown, to the largest megalopolis on the planet, twenty-four million transient inhabitants within forty-five minutes of our nuclear city. I had no idea that the real ride had begun as soon as I hit the ground at La Guardia International.
The black bulletproof stretch navigator sat at the curb, armed bodyguard-driver at the ready with my name emblazoned across his chest on a whiteboard. He quickly approached me as if he knew me. I had dressed the part, Midnight Arrival, Black Conservative three-piece suit and Black tie with Silver Metallic Highlights complete with my designer prescription Black Glasses Tinted black, not something I would have worn at my old gig, as the conservative Premium Director for H & R Block’s Business Center. The porter followed with my luggage rapidly to be sure he earned a twenty spot for his trouble. It was a slow Sunday morning at 0115 hrs. at La Guardia International US Air Terminal. The porter had quickly loaded up the trunk and I had paid him 25 USD. He was a young Hispanic, he worked efficiently, and I was going to utilize his services on many occasions. As I am also part Hispanic I felt a certain loyalty to the porter; we always take care of our paisons.
As the cavernous stretch took her leave of La Guardia, I noticed that Carl (Billy Joel’s Driver-Defenseman that we were lucky enough to secure regularly over several years) kept looking at the interior mirror like he was sizing me up, like someone had given him a dossier on my purpose and my intent for the project at hand. I admittedly had no earthly idea what I had signed up for, I only knew that with my conservative administration in place and a conservative in office on Pennsylvania Avenue there was a lot of money on the table and I clearly had the luggage to hall every bit and morsel to Geneva for safe keeping. The ride was a mixture of anxiety and fear. I was nervous, I hadn’t received many calls for action from Pennsylvania Avenue but their message was loud and clear; Newt had signed their Charter on Friday, and they need covert funding and a complete corporate profile by the time the article hit the Post and the Journal on Monday morning. They would pull out all the stops to be sure that my team had full access to any and all available resources to establish, operate, and maintain “the United Tribal Alliance and subsidiary Central Banking Operations,” whatever the fuck that was.
We arrived at “the Mark,” located on Lexington Avenue in the midtown banking district, a tony but very private five-star hotel rated in the $ 1k per night plus range, at the butt-crack of dawn, my six shiny German stainless-steel luggage in tow, even at 0315 hrs. The staff was in tip top shape with doorman, luggage porter, desk porter, and desk manager in attendance to get me set up in the FDR Suite right away. I flashed my ID at Heinrich, the Desk Manager, and before he read it he said, “Mr. Robinson, we have been expecting you your Suites have been prepared, Two Bedrooms, a Conference Room with video-conferencing and four-scrambled Broadband connections, Rooftop Garden with four benches, and fully equipped kitchen are ready for your inspection, your assistant Michelle Rae [whoever the hell that is] is en-suite and awaiting your orders. The bill has been taken care of for the duration of your stay and future stays as well. Thank You for this opportunity to serve you!” “Thank You!” I said. “Do all of your guest at the Mark receive this level of attention?” I asked. He responded, “No sir but we are aware that your work is important and we will be at your disposal 24 hours a day to handle your needs.
Ben and Jerry the luggage porter and his able assistant carried up my new German stainless steel luggage set and had a trolley to transport my computers and printer up to the FDR suite where my new 19 year old assistant, Michelle Rae, was ready, willing, and able to do anything she was instructed to do to make me happy. She was to be mine to utilize 24 hours a day on the three continents. We were booked to travel, without my prior knowledge or consent. Through all of the madness over the last twelve hours, I had forgotten to call into Mitch the Bitch, my drunken Regional Manager at the Block, to let him know that I fuckin’ hated his guts and I quit effective immediately, if not sooner. I knew when I took that temporary project assignment with “the United Tribal Alliance and subsidiary Central Banking that it was not temporary at all, but life altering as in for fucking ever and ever Amen.
Michelle Rae was a thermo-nuclear (very explosive and very hot) Blond Haired Green Eyed German chick, an intern and honor student from Columbia University uptown, who had specialized in International Relations in their pre-law program. I knew the minute I saw her I fully intended to sex her up long before sunlight. As I approached the living room I saw that Michelle Rae was already moved in to the bedroom on the left. Michelle Rae had the computers booted up and a series of newspaper articles on the white board. She also had a crate of financial documents on the conference table in very neat, apparently segregated stacks along with two brand new digital cell phones, one labeled New York and one labeled London, along with a pair of Red U.S. Passports with Gold Leaf writing on the covers.
I had been locked and loaded, (targeted to take this job) even before I got the first phone call. They knew I could not say no. Bill, the Private Investment Banker had worked for Army Logistics as a ‘Global Petroleum Asset Manager’ in the beltway, before he began his career at “DLJ”, on Wall Street. He still operated like I was one of his lieutenants going into the battle zone. I could not have refused this assignment, if I wanted to. They had new phones New York and London, not in my name, and a shiny new Red Passport with my name and picture in it. They had even transferred a ten thousand dollar expense retainer to Ohio in advance of my arrival so that my automatic payments would be covered for the next six months. They had the receipt on the top of the briefing report that I was about to digest.
Michelle Rae broke out a fresh bottle of Courvoisier VVSOP, a very limited version of the famous Spirit, and stood to my left, perky Dolly Parton breast at the ready and right at mouth height. I took the beverage that she offered, although at the moment I really was not a drinker, which changed rapidly from that night forward. I weighed in on my impression of her setup and she explained her family and educational background as I caught a buzz and stared at her voluptuous love-triangle, I could taste the sweet Peach as she spoke about her business and political experiences at the tender young age of 19 years. She talked about her participation in the Young Republicans Club, which we had in common, her mother’s role on the RNC and her father’s partnership in a Sports Team franchise in Texas. Her accent had me wanting to mount and stuff her on the conference room table like a good Buck should. To my full and utter amazement, she took the papers out of my hand and showed me her bedroom suite off to the left of the conference room.
This was an experience that I had absolutely no intention of sharing with my family, most especially my lovely wife back in the flatlands of Gahanna, Ohio. Michelle Rae pushed me back on her bed, coverlet and all peeled my suit off and mounted my chest, pinning my arms to the bed with her lower leg while she rode my face with her upper thighs. She was a collegiate athlete, of that I was certain her body-fat percentage was less than 8%. She had me signed and closed from the moment I got off the elevator and now she sat on my face in her bed, as I prepared to eat, finger, and fill her voluptuous love-triangle, repeatedly and often.
As the daylight rose off to the east side of her bedroom, she said we were due down on the second floor at 0815 hrs. I moved slowly at first to hit the shower and change suits, she told me that, ‘I was to join her in her bathroom now!’ I was a soldier and so I followed her orders directly and without delay. Her expert but firm hands lathered me up with a liquid sports soap that she rubbed all over my back and buns as the steaming hot water shot out of the front and back nozzles of the granite covered triple shower simultaneously. She mounted me from the rear and grabbed my Jonathan Henry Higginbotham as it was her own personal, private, property. She acted surprised to feel that he was at full attention as she jacked-him-off took playful bites out of my ears and my neck and rubbed soap on my chest simultaneously, all from my rear. Wow, I thought at the time, I am never going back to H & R Block again, ever. The Block never even gave me a gold watch let alone a travelling nymphomaniac with an expense account, for my own personal concubine “Executive Assistant”. My assistant at Block was not attractive at all. She was in possession of a bad attitude and a substantially worn out body after having six puppies not attractive at all. She was in possession not. Not quite my speed for a Travel Companion, Executive Personal Assistant, or My Fuck Buddy.
As Michelle Rae and I arrived on the second floor I saw a distinguished looking group of a mixture of National Origins speaking English in very different dialects. There were representatives of various Indigenous Trusts from Australia, England, Asian Peninsula, Canadian Indian Tribes, American Indian Tribes and a manager from their resort and gambling operations. Raj was a British accent Indian dude, very hip middle aged and blinging to high heaven like a Jet Black Porsche 911 Gemballa wide-body. I later found out he was a tribal prince who was instrumental in closing the Australian Trust Fund deal with the United Kingdom who owed them treaty payments on mercantile shipping for the past 200 years due and payable in full. I could smell the money before I ever sat down. This little tribe of Indians represented well over $ 8 Billion in revenue per annum. I had found my Aradia, the goddess-daughter of Diana and Lucifer.
As we concluded making arrangements with the Indigenous group assembled before us to commit to depository asset management inside the sub-accounts of the United Tribal Alliance, we began with the Investment Bank of the Presidents: Donaldson, Lufkin, and Jenrette (D,L,J) [now Credit Suisse-Union Bank of Switzerland]. I called Bill from the table with the new clients and he said that he knew I would close them. I told him not quite yet, we are on the way across the street to see him at the Park Avenue HeadQuarters with the new clients for the United Tribal Alliance sub-accounts, and their initial opening deposits of 18,000,000 USD.
As we entered the lobby at D, L, J the security was like Fort Knox. Blue suit dudes with Gloves and Security Badges were all over the building. We were stopped at the check in counter when Bill and his very able-bodied Executive Assistant Katie came to rescue us from the Gestapo. It was not every day that they had non-whites coming into their building, absent an apron and broom. They seemed affronted when the team took us up to the rooftop dining room of the President of the Bank.
The International group of Indigenous clients were quite impressed with their view of all of Park Avenue in both directions. The Vanderbilt, the Trump, J.P. Morgan-Chase, Bear-Stearns, Bank of New York, Kuwaiti National Bank, Citibank and many more just outside the window. It was painfully obvious that they had not previous eaten in a $ 1k a plate for lunch establishment before. We were served eight courses for lunch and that did not include the post-lunch dessert, or the lunch hour cocktails. When we finished, I noticed that there were no other non-whites or women in the room. Very interesting on the top floor of one of the oldest government sponsored safe-house on earth and they only allow White Anglo Saxon Protestants Males to dine I perpetuated a system filled with Racism, Classism, Sexism, and Parasitism. I was very good at my job and the pay was very good too! I had a closing ratio of 100%. But, I was very young and very naïve in the Private International Banking World. I knew something was not right. But it was a job that someone was going to do; it may as well be me. My Cash was on the table.
. C’est la vie, I didn’t give a shit as long as I got my 8% of the deposit for my real client, The United Tribal Alliance et. al. That is Commission of 1,440,000.USD for taking these dudes to breakfast and lunch, four hours work total. They each tendered their commitment for 80M more within 90 days], I dropped the deposits on Bill’s desk. Bill had Katie prepare some official receipt shit and I took the documents to the clients in the conference room.
When I returned to the DLJ conference room I introduced them to Gail the illustriously nominated Chairwoman of the United Tribal Alliance. A very interesting tidbit, since she was an Albino with no Indian Blood at all and she came from the Backwoods of Georgia. With no political background, she was a former Agent for ‘the Company’ and had no other work history or references, except for a letter of recommendation from Ronnie Ray-gun from his office at Century City Plaza in Los Angeles. She looked like a ghost and she acted like a ghost, too. Gail had no substance of any kind she was transparent and empty like a bag of groceries from Pathmark before you buy anything. Too much make up, dramatic clothing with way too much ethnicity for any self-respecting southern belle. But, she had an ace in the whole; she was riding old Bill like a pogo stick on a daily basis. People with money are real gullible when the chick is sitting on their laps. Gail was very good at sitting on the clients’ laps, repeatedly and often. That’s what they seemed to want more than any return on their investment with her little organization, UTA.
As the Cashier’s Checks hit Bill’s desk, he had Katie send me a wire transfer in-house of course for $ 35,000.00, for our weekly expense account, which he and I shared 50/50, the first of a long series of payments designed to buy my loyalty, buy my silence, and reserve my soul for Lucifer.
The clients were happy, Gail was aloof as usual (nee Clueless), and Bill was extremely ready for me to hit the airport for round two. Mel was an Indiana Private Banker who had pissed off a number of people all over the securities industry. He was quite loaded and needed some mechanical assistance to handle a large number of receivables from God knew who, for God knew what, to do God’s will on the homeless and starving citizens of the former USSR. Housing, Jobs, Food, Clothing and Shelter he spouted as he handed me eight Cashier’s Checks for $ 1,000,000.00 each. Another day, another commission check for $ 640,000 for receiving this deposit and transporting it back to Billy the Kid on Park Avenue. Not a bad Monday-Tuesday, Gross Commissions of 2,080,000 in less than forty-eight hours time. We just may have hit the Rock and Roll mode I kind of liked that job. I had to get back to NYC and Michelle Rae so she could prepare me for Wednesday’s adventure. New York La Guardia please!
When I got back to ‘the Mark’, Michelle Rae had my briefing for Wednesday; Mel had called and had some clients with Russian Red and Raw Diamonds ready for deposit in Antwerp. I had to make time to call my dude Shimon in Israel, a government dude but very cool and laid back. Shimon set up a meeting in London and we reacquainted ourselves. We got the Russian military dudes to zip over to Geneva Suisse Grand and put our dudes at the table then make for the deposit in Antwerp. Naturally, I had arranged some Executive Assistants from the Saudi Arabian club on Lake Geneva, it is always much better to close them once they have tasted a few of your Executive Assistance. I assembled the entourage including Hebrew lawyers, have Billy open up a long distance off shore Diamond Depository Account up in Antwerp but administered in London. I dropped in the quick $ 40,000,000.00 into the CEIB and back to London to thank Shimon. Now we were cooking with gas. Oh the pressure I must had to get back to Michelle Rae at ‘the Mark’ and hit the Malls at Roosevelt Fields.
Okay it had passed the point of needing to move on from ‘the Mark’. Traffic was too consistent and we needed to split up the functions of the group. 1.) Operations with Gail and her pair of personal book ends Lars and Hans from the U.N. peacekeeping force moved down to General Motors at 42nd and Lexington 2.) Trust Services, Marc and Michelle Rae moved into the Kuwaiti Bank Building Law Offices on Park Avenue @ 56th Street, a law suite with three lawyers two paralegals and two reception areas. Residential-Corporate presence was established at the Sliver building on 40th and Madison Avenue. 3.) Bill remained at DLJ on Park Ave. Michelle Rae and I went shopping all over the 3 square miles of stores at Roosevelt Fields.
We bought furniture, fixtures, fine arts, antiques, and all the electronic gadgets we could need. 15 k for a glass 15 feet x 8 feet conference table for my living room, it had 12 High Back Leather Executive chairs. 10k for an antique desk for the foyer. 8k for a Leather Pit to seat 12, she found an entertainment center that was 12’ high and 15 feet long and filled that baby with all the digital gadgets that could be found, purchased, and fit in the center. We had days of deliverymen bringing gear on carts and on their backs down Madison Avenue. Manhattan was tough on parking but is even worse on delivery vehicles, so many blocks between the parking and the delivery of the goods was frequently an issue. Michelle Rae and I had the basic set up all together. The deliveries began just as the cash deposits picked up $ 8m here 20 m there, money begets money.
It had never occurred to me at the time, but not one client made a penny in the years of buying selling and shopping; ‘the house’ was the real benefactor and beneficiary too. They didn’t feel the need to share the profits from all the trades and investments with the clients who owned the assets or deposited their money with the house. Come to think of it, the Indigenous masses did not receive any benefit from their deposits either. Very strange role that I played; I just brought in the business whatever the client entity was. The whole operation was spearheaded by Bill; he was the only one who knew what was going to happen from one end to the other. He did not care to share that knowledge with Michelle Rae nor myself and frankly I preferred to operate on a needs to know basis anyway. I clearly did not want or need to know any more than I had known at the time; the less I knew overall the better I felt.
As I reflect on the culture of the time, I see how greedy and corrupt the system was and I became. Gobbling up the larger private banks, new issue nameplates being directed to those that “play the game” leaving the shareholders and account holders with pennies on the dollar were commonplace transactions in which we directly participated and benefitted financially. I was greedy, and I was corrupt. Just because it was the norm doesn’t make it okay for me to screw people as a daily function of my nine year temporary assignment. I will never sully myself that way ever again! I will not take advantage of the system or my clients in a dishonest way to benefit the house. I realize that I have taken a vow of poverty and normalcy. I realize that there are no 80 story condos in Columbus, nor are there a fleet of Stretch Navigators at my disposal anymore. I lost it all, my immediate family disintegrated, my health collapsed, I was smoking, I was drinking, I was drugging, a pill for every section of everyday in every country, reserving my way into an early grave. I watched a lot of people die around me, all of us with a common denominator=>other people’s money! (greed and gluttony).
My daughter Ashley called me in Switzerland. She asked, ‘Dad, when will you be home?’ I was in the midst of cleaning myself up after I had devoured one of the Anglo Russian concubines from the Casino at Lac Lu Main (Geneva) where I was entertaining a new Russian client.
I told her, “I don’t know pretty baby, I’m working”.
She said, “ You love money more than you love me !”
I was floored, I lost my breath, I lost my words, and I lost what was left of my blackened heart. My little girl woke me up, in my real life, to my real world. I packed my real shit in the travel trunks, packed the mobile office, and left the Dom Zuricher Hotel for good. No amount of Money or Love could replace the respect of my baby girl. That night I caught my flight back from Zurich to JFK Airport: New York on the Red Eye flight.
After losing all forms of trust with my family, my friends, my former wife; I find myself in a very strange place. I don’t trust anyone. I have been the victimized, I have been the parasite, and I don’t enjoy either role. My kids are the most important contribution that I have made to my community.
As I arrived at the train station in Pittsburgh I was looking to my left and saw a young version of myself standing with his arms folded over a white striped button down, black striped Euro tie, and completed with black Marc Echo half boots. I got a little bit teary that my son and my mother still had love for me after my extended absence. I grabbed this young version of myself and tried to lift him into the air. He picked me up off the floor, 240 lbs. and he lifted me like a bag of peat moss, quickly and with confidence. Brandon said, ‘Papa Smurf (a reference to my Chassidic-like beard) this is my job now!’ I said, “Put me down, I love you anyways!” My son chose a different path, to remain close to his family. He had decided to work in Medical claims for the insurance industry. He put himself through Ohio State and gained the necessary certifications to become an insurance claims representative in Dublin, Ohio. Although he does indeed favor me, he has chosen a career and a path that will not cause him to miss his sons’ first steps, his sons’ first soccer game, his sons’ first girlfriend, or his sons’ Prom.
My Mom was standing back and she was taking in this scene in broad daylight in Penn Station, she is crying, just a little bit. Brandon was living with my mom, since his dad was too busy in New York to get home him. Her prodigal son had returned to the family, bent on making up for his greed, his gluttony, and his abandonment of his familial duty. I was home, but I felt homeless. I was in a building full of people, but I felt all alone. My homecoming was not what I imagined but I was oddly at peace. As my baby boy drove us through the Allegheny Mountains, I explained how I have been accepted to study at the Ohio State University. Mom is all with the program as she is a career educator and her husband was an English scholar/professor instructing at the Ohio State and Cleveland State in Advanced English.
I have few regrets. However, my parents had aged, my kids had grown up without me, my ex-wife moved on, my friends died in horribly lonely and in unnatural incidents; Life keeps moving, even without me. W.T.F.?
What good I have done since leaving Midtown Manhattan and the world of Private International Banking? I volunteer 4 to 5 days per month at the Women and Children’s Refugee Center, and I recruit others for their help too. I Supervise community groups at Professional Sporting Events in Central Ohio; Columbus Clippers Baseball, Columbus Crew Soccer, and the Ohio State Buckeyes.
When it was all over, I am truly happy, I was happy not to be stressed out from doing the wrong thing all day, all the time, to all the clients. I was happy to not have to change my clothes three times in one afternoon to quell the stench and odor of decay from the inside out. Most importantly I was happy because I knew at the end of each and every day that I had done the best that I can do for the people around me that trust me and depend on me for my truthful and honest support. I had loved each and every friend, acquaintance and client served unselfishly in Agape. I am happy to be a part of a team and a member of my community, playing an integral part of making a difference for my peer group at each and every function that I attend and that I write up and submit.
I lift weight and run regularly. I do not smoke cigarettes. I don’t go clubbing every night. I don’t have a fancy house. I don’t have fancy cars. I don’t have eight to ten meetings every day. I don’t have any money. I am truly happy for the first time since George Herbert Walker Bush sat on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Most of all, my friends and family don’t have to worry about my safety and well- being, well not all the time. In Manhattan, life expectancy of the average introducer/arranger and broker was about 40 years for the average player. We had burned out, get burnt, or simply fade away. It is a great feeling to live again, to love again, and to cry again. I am living almost like a human again.
It is most interesting to be a part of something bigger than the next S.W.I.F.T. wire transfer protocol. I am proud to be a member of my campus community, to have a caring and supportive peer group.
He who dies with the most toys does not win the game, he dies alone. He, who gets out of the game, is the winner-takes-all victor in the game of life. This is not the end but a new beginning, my Phoenix!
Shalom Aleichem! (Hebrew Translation: Peace, May God’s Blessing be upon you.)
Marc
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