Brookfield Basics

So proclaimed the fictional character Lucas Jackson - better known to us as Cool Hand Luke.

In my mind's eye I see Paul Newman barking out that line, delivered with a visage that was half grin and half smirk.  His face was sardonic, sarcastic, challenging, and joyful all at the same time.  It was acting in the greatest sense of the word; an indisputable talent that held the power to move us.  Those five words and that one look defined the character of Cool Hand Luke. 

I was saddened yesterday to learn of the death of Paul Newman; Academy Award winning actor, race-car driver, businessman, entreprenneur, and husband.  Working in an industry populated by the world's most desirable women, he could have had any one of them with little more than a nod.  Despite this, he lived in lifelong fidelity to the wife of his youth; his marriage to Joann Woodward a marital lighthouse to an industry of foundered vessels.  I was further saddened to think it has been forty-one years since the release of Cool Hand Luke.  Where did THOSE years go?

Paul Newman was huge.  He possessed what the actors and actresses of Hollywood's Golden Era had - presence, charisma, size.  Does anyone believe any of today's "A-list" leading men, while perhaps matching Newman's striking looks, could even THINK about pulling off a role like the Cool Hand?  Russell Crowe - perhaps.  Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, or George Clooney - please.  Newman practiced his craft at a time when Hollywood had left behind its Golden Age and was transitioning to the modern world of American entertainment.  "Cool" is something we can't really define, but know it when we see it.  Newman had it, and along with Steve McQueen, epitomized Hollywood cool in this era.   

He appeared in over seventy films, with Hud, The Verdict, Slap Shot, and Absence of Malice listed as my favorites.  But I believe his defining work, a film that has entered into the iconoclastic halls of our popular culture, is Cool Hand Luke.

It was remarkable on many levels.  Directed by Stuart Rosenburg, it had an incredible number of actors who used it as a springboard to roles in film or television, like George Kennedy, Dennis Hopper, Wayne Rogers, JD Cannon, Harry Dean Stanton, Joe Don Baker, Ralph Waite, and others.  It firmly cemented the prison film as a major genre in Hollywood.  Lastly, it was a pivot point for leading-men roles, as it entrenched the concept of the "anti-hero" in American cinema and popular culture.

The title of this piece is taken from what I believe to be the foundational scene of the movie.  It comes just past the the film's half-way point, where Luke had become a cult figure in the prison and was locked in mortal combat with the warden over his refusal to "get his mind right", to conform to the "Boss".  His fellow prisoners clearly began to look at him as a savior figure, and Luke was pressured to achieve increasingly outrageous acts in order to hold their rapt attention.  So while lazily reclined on his cot, he issued this challenge, which immediately became the subject of furious prison wagering.  His first lieutenant George Kennedy (Dragline), said, "Luke - no one can eat fifty eggs" - and the bet was on.

The scenes of Newman eating the eggs (in one hour) ranged from hilarious to wrenching.  The scene of him at the end of the gluttonous fest, arms outstretched on the table, abdomen distended and feet together, was an unmistakable caricature of crucifixion, and a clear foreshadowing of Luke's ultimate sacrifical death to free the men.

So many scenes and so many lines from that film remain ensconsced in our minds and our daily parlance, and none more so than the infamous, "What we have here is a failure to communicate". 

It is a tremendous film, full or heartbreak, humor, and humanity; revealed to us by a great actor at the height of his craft.

Watch it again, or for the first time. 

And tip your hat to a Hollywood legend as you do so.. 

William Manchester is my favorite historian.  An unparalleled researcher and a lover of language; he wrote of the great men and wars of the Twentieth Century, and wrapped them in context and insights so illuminating as to make his work unique amongst all I have read.  Such insight came at the price of personal experience - Manchester was a decorated U.S. Marine who was severely injured on Okinawa.  In his stunning memoir of World War Two entitled Goodbye Darkness, Manchester wrote of he and his comrades on Okinawa that, "we were living very fast".  He meant that they knew they were living in a pivot point of history.

Last week we saw the pivot point in a financial maelstrom of almost mythological proportion, and Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson and the world's financial markets have also been living very fast.  The debate about whether or not the U.S. Government should have done what it did is now academic.  What CAN and NEEDS to be debated are how it should best manage the bailout.  In order to do this it is critical to understand the foundational causes of this crisis.   

Our two Presidential candidates tried to respond to these very questions, and neither one acquited himself well.  Barack Obama did what he does - smoothly and articulately dispense a bunch of high-sounding but empty words, continuing his pattern of spewing rhetorical Cheetos to a nation hooked on political junk food.  John McCain looked frustrated and confused as he groped for a position.  I longed for one of them to say something like, "this is an incredibly complex and important matter and I am simply not going to use it as a political whipcord until I have had a chance to think it through".  How refreshingly courageous this would have been.  

Because problems like this are so ENORMOUS we assume the causes and solutions must be of equal size and complexity.  We view a dizzying menu of things like "sub-prime packages" and "securitizations" and "unwindings of debt", until the whole matter becomes an opaque bowl of data-laden goo.  While all of these things have their place in the discussion, they are simply too large for us to assimilate, and worse, cause us to lose sight of the truly foundational issues.  Our eyes move from headline to headline, and our ears absorb panel discussions until we contract intellectual lock-jaw.  The lock jaw then turns into capitulation; an almost involuntary "shrugging of our intellectual shoulders".  This is not a healthy development and we need to resist it.   

Amongst many enablers of this crisis there was one primary primary factor - the years of ridiculously easy money proferred by the Fed, in spite of nearly two decades of unsustainably soaring real estate values.  Alan Greenspan now postures that years of record low interest rates were not the cause.  I agree, but more so than any one factor it enabled this crisis.  And more than any other individual's, it was his hand that held the great National Needle of Morphine as it dripped the narcotic of rate reductions into our fiscal veins.  This would not have happened had Paul Volcker been Fed Chairman.

But while easy money ENABLED the crisis, it did not CAUSE it.  I believe there are two primary causes of this mess:  human greed and something closely linked to it - a failure of CHARACTER on the part of the leaders of America's enormous financial institutions.  

We all have it within us to be greedy; it is a propensity of our nature and one that can only be combatted with discipline and care.  But for all the prattle about "change" on the campaign trail, I trust we all agree that neither candidate is able to change the condition of the human heart.  Greed cannot be eradicated, and will always be an issue in our dealings.  It was greed on the part of prospective home buyers that led them to "rent" three-hundred thousand dollar homes because they were not content to "buy" a two-hundred thousand dollar home.  It was greed on the part of real estate speculators.  And of course, it was greed on the part of banks and brokerage houses, now joined together in an incestuous relationship, who churned out these packages to millions of such people, consciously spurning the time-honored and proven traditions of their industry.

But we need to loook further and deeper.  We need to acknowledge that it was a crisis of character on the part of the leaders of these institutions.  Men and women who simply knew better but could not bring themselves to stand up in their board rooms and say, "ENOUGH - NO MORE.  We will no longer engage in such risky and unsustainable conduct.  It may be legal, but it isn't RIGHT".  It tells us that managers who DID do this had the courage to say "NO" to the orgiastic joy ride of their industry.  It reminds us that a senior manager's FIRST and SACRED responsibility is to act in the best interests of their SHAREHOLDERS - NOT to achieve a particular level of quarterly bonus for their staff.  

Please remember this the next time you hear someone say, "I am more interested in a person's policies than I am in their personal character".  There are pivotal times in history where character is inseparable from policy, and indeed, far more important. 

So where do we go from here?

There is an interesting development ocurring which predictably, is going  under reported by our fallow mainstream media.  There are actually banks and financial firms that are still on their feet.  And some of them are beginning to enter the picture and conduct negotiations to buy some of the failed banks.  This tells us two things.  First, that such institutions were led by people who decided they would NOT engage in such incendiary practices.  And secondly, it tells us that the market can help the Government sort this mess out by purchasing the assets of now defunct organizations at a hugely discounted rate, and begin the process of building up their capital base and balance sheets into a stable condition.  The single best thing the U.S. Government can do right now beyond what has already ocurred, is to create an environment where such transactions are transparent, encouraged, and applauded.  It is also time to create an agency akin to the Resolution Trust Corporation and put the RIGHT PERSON in charge of it.  I don't know who that might be, but amongst many who have the professional competence, I would look for a person of unquestioned and Olympian CHARACTER.  I hope and pray that Paul Volcker, or someone of his caliber, is available to serve. 

Lastly, I believe this crisis has taught us that economics is more important than finance.  Economics is the foundational science of commerce, for it is the study of how human beings make decisions under the context of unlimited wants, finite resources, and the condition of the human character.  Finance is the methodology through which economic decisions are enacted.  It is finance that says, "Hey - I have figured out how to mass produce uncollateralized loans for people who cannot afford them".  It is economics that says, "Well congratulations - but that is a BAD idea".  Finally, it is people who understand economics and combine it with personal character who say, "I don't care how much pressure builds up - we are NOT going to do it".    

The final and most important lesson of this crisis is to listen to the laws of economics, and to political and financial leaders who understand them. 

And who have the courage to respect them. 

I believe that the voices we listen to when receiving our news is becoming as important as the news itself.

Most people I know expect our leaders and our pundits to disagree and to hold different views.  They not only expect it; l believe they want it.

What we don't want, but regrettably have come to expect, is the strident tones of apocolyptic rhetoric that seem to have become the norm in the last fifteen years.  There is a savagery in our public discourse that is more than concerning - it is alarming.

And this is why Peggy Noonan of The Wall Street Journal has been my favorite columnist for a long time.  

Ms. Noonan is extremely bright and erudite, but this does not distinguish her.  In a field littered with so many poor writers, she is a very good one.  Her penetrating observations combine with a talent for making complex issues and relationships seem clear, and her use of analogy is brilliant.  Unlike the glut of talking heads who follow in her wake, she actually has some knowledge of cultural and political history.  She is willing to put in the hard work of honest self-reflection and editing of content, an old school journalist who honors the traditions of her profession.  And all of these are qualities that DO separate her from most of her peers.

She "made her bones" thirty years ago in a world dominated by men, and is rightfully proud of that accomplishment.  But her pride is tempered with, dare I say it, feminine style.  

But more than all of this, Peggy Noonan possesses one quality that puts her at the very top of my list.   

She is gracious.

Graciousness is a virtue, a pattern of character and behavior that indicates one possesses and is willing to dispense - grace.  And it is all but non-existent in the profession of print and television journalism.   

Regardless of our walk in life, I think we can all learn from Peggy Noonan.

I had dinner last night with a man who was in Manhattan on 9-11.  He saw the second plane; he smelled the burning steel and fuel; he wintessed the death and mayhem.  Driving home I recalled another dinner I had with my father decades ago, where somehow we got talking about Pearl Harbor.  My Dad was an articulate and educated man, but he could not capture for me the reaction that the country experienced upon news of the attack.  He tried to convey what it was like as he huddled around the radio with his parents and siblings, listening to Franklin Delano Roosevelt give his famous address to Congress.

We all have our memories of 9-11, and as the number of Americans who have first-hand memories of Pearl Harbor declines, 9-11 will stand as our singular collective memory of the United States of America being attacked by a hostile foreign power. 

Winston Churchill once said that "All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word:  freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope".

As I think of 9-11 and peel back the emotional onion layers of what that day holds for us, I try and think of Churchill's "great things".  Images that recall the unimaginable courage of the men and women of the NYFD - people who ran UP the staircases as maelstroms of fire, concrete, steel, and death poured down.  An itinerant taxi driver stopping to comfort a Wall Street Executive.  A mother clutching her child to her bosom, as the raw scenes of death and mayhem revealed with savage clarity the things that really matter in life.

But I also use the memory of 9-11 to try and put complex and incredibly difficult issues into a sense of focus.  In my view there are realities about 9-11 that some don't want to confront.  Worse, as evidenced by the sad case of Professor Ward Churchill, there are those who would contort these realities into such a mosh of post-modern psycho-babble as to have us think of OURSELVES as the guilty party, a party who actaully DESERVED this "rough justice".  What a sad irony that this small-minded and hate-filled man would share the same name of the great Statesman. 

The personal loss and tragedies of this horrific event can only be experienced on an individual level.  But on a national level we can look back on 9-11 and use it to remind ourselves of a few things.  9-11 serves as a reminder that there ARE such things as right and wrong.  9-11 reminds us that there is such a thing as EVIL in the world, and that it requires a response from us, both individually and collectively.  It reminds us of what Alexander Solzhenitsyn told us - that evil resides not in countries or polticial systems or creeds, but rather that it resides in the human heart on an individual by individual basis.  It reminds us that there is a DIFFERENCE between people who board a bus to get across town, and those who get on a bus with C-4 strapped to their bodies.

There are DIFFERENCES in the world.  There are DIFFERENCES in belief systems.  There ARE such things as good and evil, and choosing one vs. the other is an individual responsibility that MATTERS.  

My father's generation would not have felt the need to articulate such things - they viewed them as self-evident.

Why have we lost the courage to say so?

Perhaps recovering some of that courage is the best way to honor the dead of 9-11.

Tuesday of last week saw high humidity and temperatures approaching the mid 90's.  Then on Saturday morning as I walked around the Farmers Market there was a chill in the air.  Where else but the upper Midwest would you run air conditioning on Tuesday and wear sweats just a few days later? 

Realizing that the Market's season is drawing to a close made me appreciate it all the more.  What an array of bounty spread before our eyes, where in the space of a hundred yards you can purchase delectables ranging from steak to a smorgasbord of baked goods, spices and vegetables.  It is a feast for the senses - the brilliance of the floral arrangements, the deep green and pale yellow of the peppers, the scent of bakery, and OH MAN -  those tomatoes.  All too soon we'll be in the aisles of Pick 'N Save skeptically eyeing their limp imposters, and wistfully thinking to ourselves, "You call yourself a TOMATO"??!!  And all of this taken in while young performers serenade us with violin and harp.  What a tremendous way to spend a lazy half-hour on a Saturday morning.

Autumn is here, and as long as I can remember it has been my favorite season.  The cooler temperatures, crisp air, fabulous color, and our agricultural bounty all combine to stamp this magical season's impression upon us.  It got me thinking about something I wrote nearly twenty five years ago that I titled Fall's Run.  Barb and I were hiking the Leelanau Penninsula in northern Michigan (pictured above), when we stumbled upon one of the most fabulous and confounding sights in all of nature.  We sat and gazed in silence as the salmon were "running" up the Leland River.  I was mesmerized by the sight then, and am transfixed by its memory now.  I wrote a tribute to those noble creatures which I present below.  I apologize as the blogging software does not allow for proper spacing.

Fall's Run

As the leaves softly turn to a burnished gold, and the air cools and crackles and snaps in the night;

The earth yields her bounty in richness untold, and the rivers are home to an ancient sight.

A bottomless impulse that has no name, summons them from the boundless deep.

Irrestible object or immovable force - the next generation their harvest to reap.

Shining bands of ribboned steel, explode from the surface and up through the mist.

They know not what drives them, what makes them die; a force as committed as a clenched fist. 

Like angry mortars they hurl themselves, into the teeming, foaming spray.

Battered and dazed they do not relent.  Rest - regroup - then back to the fray.

A haven up-river beckons them, where their journey began in a quiet pool.

To find it, to reach it, and pass on their life.  Then die in that water, sweet-calm and cool.

Why must it be that very same spot, where the light of day first reached their eyes?

How do they know it, what guides their way, through miles of shore traveled long ago?

Some few make it back to that very same spot, to pass on their spirit which now ebbs away.

Exhausted and battered, destroyed and withdrawn.  Yet never defeated in the gentle cool sway.

Their victory won they complete the chain, their bodies surrender the seed of new life.

With me or without me their years spin away, their redmeption won through this noble strife.

The almost mythological trek of the salmon remains for me one of the seminal experiences in all of nature.  It's autumn in Wisconsin folks - let's get OUT THERE.