We pick up friends in life in all sorts of ways. Typically, we gather most of our friends from those who live around us. Sometimes its about home and hearth and sometimes its about the workplace. This morning I’m thinking about several specific friends that hold particular and very different meaning to me, but both come from L.A.. One came from my work environment about twenty years ago. The others are friends we lived next to a decade ago and have become tight with out here on the West Coast, especially thanks to COVID.
The friend from work was a young man who worked for me when I took over Bear Stearns Asset Management in 2003. He worked in one of our well-established hedge funds and was a family friend of one of the principals. He was originally from L.A. but had taken to life in New York. He was anything but your typical hedge fund guy. What I mean by that is that he was more pleasant and less driven than the sort who usually work that market. I connected with him right away and found it interesting to see him navigate the rocky shoals of those times in the Bear hedge fund family. His team was extraordinarily focused on what I will kindly call informational arbitrage. What that means is that they trafficked in getting out ahead of the market by gleaning tidbits of market information that was not available to others. In most circles that is called insider trading, but these shrewd devils skirted the field ever so carefully. I took note that this young friend was never in the thick of the contested areas and I suspected that was not by accident. The most suspicious people were the ones who’s ethics and work habits seemed destined for trouble. The team had one blonde bombshell that chose to never come into the office (this was well before any thoughts of remote working). Her specialty was garnering information from the big tech company CFOs that might indicate where earnings were likely to be headed. I was forced to initiate several inquiries into to some suspicious trading patterns and a few errant email whisps, but nothing ever came of it. They knew and I knew and they knew that I knew, but that seemed to matter little to them. I remember thinking that my young friend might be helpful, but I am glad to say that I kept him out of the line of fire.
After the big 2007 hedge fund debacle at BSAM, one which did not involve these shady old-world hedge fund guys, the irony of the situation did occur to me. The guys who ran the troubled hedge funds were as honest as the day was long. They always did right by their investors, their people and the firm, but that didn’t stop them from being criminally indicted. Meanwhile, the real investment gangsters were running loose, darting in and out of the market, stepping over the regulatory lines on an almost daily basis. They found great humor in their brethren’s plight and the collateral damage it caused to me and others around us. But life has a way of putting things right and where my honest troubled hedge fund managers went to trial (I was a witness for the defense), they were resoundingly acquitted. Meanwhile the gangsters (not to include my young friend) got caught up in the big Raj Ragaratnam trading scandal that busted open the insider trading ring of thieves to which they had become integral. The boss man and the blonde bombshell went to jail and justice seemed to be served for a change.
My young friend emerged from that unscathed and found a path that suited him through the financial landscape. I recall hearing from him that one side gig he took on was to license the rights to the famous NYC Greek deli coffee cup (the one in blue and white that looked like it belonged on the Parthenon). He sold coffee mugs and other paraphernalia with that theme that had become a part of every New Yorker’s morning ritual (whether you drank coffee or not, since they were hard to miss). I’m thinking of him this morning because I just finished a first draft of an expert witness report for a case that he referred to me. Not only is it a nice piece of business, but I get a higher percentage of it since it was sourced through me. I also just heard from him today with a copy of a newsletter he writes about the Kentucky Derby. It seems that he is an aficionado of handicapping horse racing, an art that I thought went by the wayside with the fedora hat. I like hearing about my friend’s unique hobbies like this and particularly when they reference, as this write-up did, some ancient history, like a comment about the blonde bombshell, who is somewhere in the underbrush to be sure.
The friends from home were our neighbors on Staten Island. They took up residence in an apartment that was larger than ours and that we had passed on in deference to taking the slightly smaller one we occupied. We literally met over the terrace wall and have been fast friends ever since. Gary was the Provost of the College of Staten Island and Oswaldo was his adjutant and general event planner about town. I kept Gary company while he recovered from lung surgery and Oswaldo kept me in dinners whenever Kim had to travel. They moved back to L.A., from whence they had come, just after we made our final move out here to San Diego. When the worst of COVID hit, they were stuck in a relatively small L.A. apartment, so we suggested they move down with us for the duration. They settled in for about six weeks and we felt right at home with them in our daily lives. We all connect well with one another, but Gary and I are both writers and share that common ground, while Kim and Oswaldo are well-matched in the kitchen.
Gary and Oswaldo spend their time going here and there visiting friends and we consider ourselves fortunate to be on their circuit. They come to spend several days with us every so often and we always look forward to those visits. In fact, they are on my mind because they arrive this morning for just such a visit. They have been here enough that we know we don’t have to plan anything extraordinary, but rather just enjoy each others’ company. Gary helped me when I started writing by editing my work for me. I like to think I helped inspire Gary to write the several novels that he now has. That feels like the relationship we all four share, one of common good and support for one another.
We all like to say that we have lots of friends, but the truth is usually that we have lots of acquaintances. Friends are more rare in my book. Friends are people of like mind and sensibilities, people who go out their way for you and who you will go out of your way for. There is a certain threshold of tolerance you will afford a friend that may not be offered to others. And most importantly, a friend is someone you always look forward to being with or hearing from. The fun of friends is one of the great joys of life.
Today, Gary and Oswaldo arrived and I spent the afternoon just sitting and talking with them. There are few things I would rather do with an afternoon than that. There is a comfort in their presence that always reminds me that there are few things more pleasant than the fun of friends.