It’s been an incredibly busy week, and more remarkable because it’s a week in July, and the stock market has traditionally waited until autumn to deflate the fantasies of greedy investors. The gods of commerce apparently decided to get started early this time, handing all those starry-eyed dreamers the stock market’s worst performance in five years. Yes, once again, with the inevitable regularity of hurricanes, tornados and brushfires, the big-time insiders got the gold mine and the 401(k) set got the shaft. So, on top a my regular work load, I’ve been constantly besieged all week by family, friends and business contacts seeking financial advice. That never happens when the stock market is good, of course – when things are going well, investors trust their brokers, market analysts and the geeks who developed and support their personal investment software. But when the market starts to tank, there seems to be this universal assumption that their brokers, analysts, and possibly those geeks, too, are part of some kind of vast conspiracy to reduce the little individual investors to penury. Then all such unlucky nebbishes who know Tom Collins contact me instead. I’m well aware of what they want – they want me to say something different from what their brokers and analysts have told them, which are invariably things like “this is a temporary market correction,” and “stock investment is an inherently risky undertaking.” The people clogging my Inbox, calling my various telephone numbers, jamming my fax machines and dropping by my office unannounced all labor under the same illusion. They think that Tom, being who he is (whatever they may conceive that to be) will let them in on the real skinny and then all those bucks that seem to have mysteriously evaporated since last Monday shall magically return. Well, those folks are right on one point, at least. There is indeed a vast and sinister conspiracy afoot. It’s called publicly traded equity and the sharks have been using it to feast off the suckers since they first convened under that chestnut tree on Wall Street back in 1792 and started looking for prey. So I spent an obscene number of uncompensated hours this week explaining to people that the wealth they thought they had never actually existed, but if they just wait out the panic that is spreading through their ranks like rumors of a passenger with TB on an eighteen hour flight from Hong Kong, their metaphorical Airbus A380 will land safely at its fanciful Dulles Airport and they will park at last, happy and free of infection, on their figurative cozy suburban Washington driveways after all. I mean, how many ways can I paraphrase “you have nothing to fear but fear itself” before I lose mind doggone mind already?
When things get hectic like that and I do manage to carve out a couple of hours to relax, I like to take a long lunch hour at the art museums down on the Mall. After dining today, I visited the Hirshhorn. Exhibitions of works by Wolfgang Tillmans and Takeshi Murata are currently visiting; in addition, I found that Virgil Marti and Pae White have done some interesting things with the lobby. The permanent collection is always worth visiting, of course.
Joe Hirshhorn, the museum’s founder, became extremely rich in the uranium business. Yes, Virginia, there was indeed a time when a person could do that – it was called the Cold War. The type of art his museum contains used to be called modern – but these days, “modern” itself has become old-fashioned. Nevertheless, if you like “modern” art, I’d recommend a walk through the place next time you, dear reader, visit Washington DC. Plus, the place is quiet and very well air-conditioned and sports a truly eerie 1950’s science fiction architecture, including some lounges with excellent views of the Mall.
I was strolling amid the paintings and sculptures that once shocked and outraged both bourgeois and philistine alike, thinking how quaint they look these days, when I heard a familiar voice speak my name.
“Tom,” it rang across the huge and virtually deserted gallery, “Tom Collins!”
Turning in the direction of that voice, I saw Jacques, whom I met at the Sorbonne back in the day. An electrical engineer by profession, his real passion is sport – in fact, he’s such a jock that’s what I call him. Crossing the gallery, I shook his hand.
“Jock,” I exclaimed, “how dare you visit Washington without calling to tell me you were coming?”
“Ah, Mec, I was called here on very short notice,” my old friend replied, using the French slang word for “tomcat” that he adopted, all those years ago, when he became aware that I was calling him “Jock” instead of “Jacques.”
“Then it must be fate,” I surmised, gesturing to a nearby lounge, “take a load off and fill me in.”
“Just a design review for a… special client,” Jacques explained as we made ourselves comfortable in the lounge, “not much I can discuss about that, you know, I’m sure?”
“Certainly,” I allowed, “and besides, I don’t want to know any secrets I don’t have to know.”
Jacques nodded and smiled wryly, “So true, Mec. What you don’t know can’t get you hurt, yes?”
“Exactly;” I concurred, deciding that a discussion of his favorite subject would no doubt be preferable anyway, “so how much have you lost on sports betting since I saw you last?”
Jacques laughed good-naturedly as he looked up at the ceiling, feigning a tote calculation, “Oh, Mec, since then, taking all of it in to account, I think maybe I have come out two hundred Euros ahead.”
“That’s better than most of the American sports bettors in my bailiwick,” I assured him, “half of them ended up broke and going into twelve-step programs.”
“Twelve steps?” Jacques looked puzzled. “Two-step is a dance, no? What is this twelve-step?”
“A recovery program. First used in America on alcoholics.”
“Oh, alcoholics,” he sighed, “yes, and according to you Americans, half the population of France are alcoholics, no?”
“Yeah,” I reluctantly agreed, “by our prudish standards, the majority of Europeans are alcoholics. When I tell a fellow Yankee that twenty-five percent of the average German male’s daily caloric intake is beer, they insist that I’m joking. But anyway, the original organization was called ‘Alcoholics Anonymous,’ so the other organizations have names like that – ‘Overeaters Anonymous,’ ‘Smokers Anonymous,’ ‘Sex Addicts Anonymous,’ and, of course, ‘Gamblers Anonymous.’”
Jacques pondered the Inscrutable American for a moment, then sighed. “It sounds to me, Mec, that if something is enjoyable, like food, smoking, drinking, gambling, having sex, you know, then in America there is one of these, how you say – twelve step programs – to help people stop doing it.”
“That’s about it,” I admitted, “you French – you eat goose pate and croissants for breakfast, smoke stinky unfiltered cigarettes, drink more wine than water, make nookie like rabbits and bet on anything that moves, and it doesn’t seem to create any major problems. But Americans aren’t happy unless they’re overdoing whatever it is they’re doing – this is the land of 15,000 calorie taco salads, two-hundred proof moonshine, a national big-breast fetish, crappy filtered cigarettes designed to get smokers to consume forty fags a day and, on top of that, a widely spread belief that luck will solve their problems faster and more effectively than work and perseverance.”
“That could,” Jacques responded, “tend to make for many Americans in these twelve step programs.”
“It sure does, old buddy,” I confirmed, “and more joining every day.”
“Unfortunately, I think, Mec,” he murmured softly, “that perhaps in France, we are becoming more like the Americans.”
“How so?”
“Have you heard that today, the French press has declared the ‘Death of the Tour de France?’”
“I’ve been very busy this week, Jock,” I explained, “so I guess I missed that. What killed your country’s world famous bicycle race?”
“Overdoing, Mec,” he sighed once again, “it is this overdoing that you spoke of, I think. Everyone taking things – steroids, stimulants, bicyclists even saving up their own blood and putting it back in their bodies before a race…”
“But haven’t a few athletes in every sport done stupid stuff like that for years – decades, even?”
“Ah yes, Mec,” he said, holding up his index finger to signify that an important point was about to be made, “but now, it is not a few of them. No, today, it is all of them, Mec, taking drugs and using medical technology to cheat in the Tour de France. That…” he shook his finger at the wall for emphasis, “that is the difference! And I think maybe sports all over the world are… how you say… imploding. Have you noticed?”
“Well, sure,” I allowed, “it’s kind of hard to miss, actually. There have been numerous reports of artificial performance enhancement in Major League Baseball for years and years, Jock. There’s this one guy, Barry Bonds – there’s been all kinds of talk about him – some say steroids, some say human growth hormone – who knows, really? But just looking at the guy, it’s obvious something’s going on. He got older, but instead of going down, his batting average went up. His arms, upper body, hell, you name it – they all got bigger, even his head.”
Jacques leaned forward, cocking his ear toward me as if to ensure he had heard correctly. “His head?” Jacques pointed at his cranium “La tête? It got… larger?”
“Yep,” I affirmed. Even our television comedians make jokes about it now. But aside from some members of Congress looking to get their mugs on TV, nobody seems to care, just as long as he keeps knocking baseballs out of the park.”
“This home run,” Jacques demurred, “I have never understood the concept. The player removes the object of play from the stadium when this happens, no?”
“He sure does.”
“And for this, the game rewards him?”
“Ah, yeah, I see what you mean, Jock. That doesn’t really make a lot of sense; which is to say, it doesn’t when you look at the game as if you were somebody from Mars – or France.”
“Tom, you must admit,” Jacques observed after considering my reply, “that kind of nonsense doesn’t happen in cricket.”
“Right you are,” I told him, “as far as I can tell, nothing happens in cricket.”
“Strictly speaking, Mec,” he continued, “that is not correct. It’s just that cricket is so… ah, who do you say?”
“God awful slow,” I offered.
“Yes,” he nodded, smiling, “so God awful slow, it appears that nothing is happening.”
“And then there’s the Tour de France,” I volleyed back, “where you folks sit in the shade by the roadside with your wine and cheese, waiting and waiting, then get up and cheer when a few guys on bicycles go by. Then you go back to lolling around until the next bunch shows up – and that goes on all day, and you call it a sport.”
“Bicycling is a great sport, Mec!” Jacques protested, “and this year is consequently a great tragedy!”
“Because?”
“Because they threw Michael Rasmussen out!”
“He lied didn’t he?” I asked, “He said he was in Mexico when he was in Italy, just so he could avoid the doping tests.”
“And they threw out Alexandre Vinokourov and the entire Astana team for doping!”
“Yeah, so?”
“So I bet on Rasmussen and Vinoknrov to win, that’s what – and the Cofidis team, too!”
“But if they were cheating,” I protested, “they don’t deserve to be in the race, do they?”
“You Americans!” Jacques shook his head in disbelief. “Such naivete! Do you see? Everybody in the Tour de France is cheating! So what is cheating then? Tell me why, Mec, why should I lose eighteen hundred and fifty Euros because the officials choose to persecute the cheaters I bet on! Look – just look, Mec! Who is the one next in the standings? Who is the guy right behind Rasmussen? Alberto Contador, that’s who! That Spanish bastard! He was part of a doping scheme last year! He cheats, too!”
“But, I take it, you didn’t bet on him?”
“You can’t bet on everybody! The bookies have that figured out, Mec! No way you can make money if you bet on everybody to win! Oh, that idiot Italian!”
“Which idiot Italian is that?”
“Why, Davide Cassani, of course! If he had just kept his mouth shut, everybody would have believed Rasmussen was really in Mexico. But no – Cassani, that fool, he had to go on television and say ‘Oh, what a dedicated man that Rasmussen is. I saw him just yesterday, training in the Dolomites’ – in the Alps, Mec – when Rasmussen was supposed to be in Mexico instead! Then some Danish reporter sees that, calls the Tour de France officials and poof! My money disappears! And the fact remains, Mec, and mark this well – that Rasmussen never, ever tested positive for drugs of any kind!”
“Yeah, technically, that’s true. They threw him out…”
“For lying!” Jacques was clearly irked. “Lying about where he was – that’s all. As if every man in France has not lied about where he was – or had been, whatever – hundreds of times in his life. Such hypocrisy, Mec,” Jacques snorted with theatrical indignation, “such hypocrisy!”
“I’m shocked,” I said, “simply shocked, to find hypocrisy in French culture.”
“For over a hundred years, Mec, the French have wagered on the Tour de France, and now, because of all this business, the entire enterprise is in jeopardy. It’s heart-breaking!”
“Well, Jock,” I consoled, “did you know that, besides all the performance enhancement substance and technology abuse we have in American sports, now our National Basketball League has allegedly been corrupted by a crooked official? They fired a game referee just a few days ago. They say he was betting on games he worked on, and was tipping inside information to bookies.”
“That may explain,” Jacques brooded, “why for the last three years I have never won a bet on basketball.”
“Ah, certainly, Jock, you don’t think that one single referee, throwing the spread or the over-under on a few NBA games, could explain all of your losses?”
“So typical,” Jacques lamented, “you Americans see only the tip of the iceberg – then you run your Titanic ship straight into it!”
“The Titanic,” I pointed out, “was English.”
“And where,” he responded meaningfully, “was it going?”
“New York.”
“There! You have it! Just what I said,” Jacques triumphantly declared, just loud enough to cause a couple seated across the lounge to jerk their heads in our direction.
I learned long ago not to pursue a figure of speech with a Frenchman, so I decided to pursue his rhetorical point instead. “Then, I take it, Jock, that you are willing to jump to the conclusion that the NBA is riddled with referees who manipulate games with their decisions – simply because that would explain why you haven’t won any basketball bets lately?”
“Ah, Mec,” he smiled, wagging his finger at me, “now you begin to understand how a real gambler thinks – like the foxes, no?”
“Or perhaps more like a bookie,” I suggested.
“Yes, the fox, the bookie, the fanged thief in the night among the many helpless chickens,” he agreed.
“But you know, Jock, American sport is going to Hell in a hand basket more ways than you can shake a stick at.”
“You are shaking sticks at a basket? What does this mean?”
“Just another figure of speech, Jock. From down south. I meant to say that sport in America is deteriorating on multiple fronts.”
“Besides the dope and fixing the games?” Jacques was truly puzzled by that. “In France, we know only of these things.”
“Well, you see, Jock, here in America, we don’t just expect our professional athletes to be clean and honest.”
“What, would that not be enough, if you could get it?”
“In Europe, it probably would be. But in America, we also expect our athletes to be role models for our children. And that’s been getting harder and harder to do for decades. But this week, it became nearly impossible.”
Jacque’s eyes widened as he peered at me in anticipation “Mon Dieu, Mec. What happened?”
“There’s this guy – Michael Vick. He’s a football player – that’s American NFL football, Jock, you know…”
“Yes, yes, the one with all the sissy padding and helmets and the forward pass and the touchdown,” he interjected with a slight tone of disdain, “we do not bet on that in France, of course.”
“Not much, I would imagine,” I resumed, “but here, it’s our most popular sport – more popular than baseball.”
“Only a fool would bet on baseball,” Jacques stated with obvious conviction.
“Now there’s something upon which many Americans would agree with you, Jock, Frenchman or not.”
Jacques gave me the hairy eyeball with that last comment, but he let it go. “So what of this Vick person?”
“He was a very successful football player, with contracts totalling over one hundred million dollars. He played for the Atlanta Falcons.”
“So what, then,” Jacques asked, leaning closer, suddenly interested, “was his downfall? Was it the nose candy? The bed with the dead girl? Or one with a live boy in it?”
I shook my head.
“No? The dressing up like a woman, perhaps? Taking the boots on with the sheep, maybe?”
“You’re getting close, Jock,” I admitted, deciding not to inordinately prolong his suspense, “it was dog fighting.”
“Dog fighting?” Jacques blanched. “You mean, where they bet on dog fights?”
“Well, I certainly wasn’t referring to aerial combat,” I affirmed. “The authorities found dogs, training materials, cages and a dog fighting pit at his house. Not that he’s considered guilty.”
“What?” Jacques was astounded. “Your gendarmerie, they find all these things and he is innocent?”
“In America, a person accused of a crime is innocent until proven guilty,” I explained.
“Just one more cause for all your problems, I think, Mec,” he responded “in France, a person accused must prove himself innocent. Believe me, mon ami, that way it works much better.”
“I’m sure such a policy must encourage people to behave themselves, Jock, but that’s just not the way we do it here.”
“More is the pity for that, Mec,” he intoned solemnly, “I think there must be many guilty people released to wander the streets here, then.”
“Yes, there are,” I quietly proclaimed, “and we’re actually sort of proud of that – in a perverse kind of way.”
“Well, I suppose you Americans need to feel proud about something,” he consoled. “Certainly not that you still bet on dogfights.”
“That’s just what I was saying, Jock. Here’s this guy who we expect to be a role model for our kids. But he’s so stupid he didn’t realize that, on one hand – here’s a hundred million dollar NFL career and on the other – here’s an illegal lowlife pastime that’s exceedingly cruel – and he can’t have both.”
“Oh, I understand,” Jacques nodded sagely, “He was so stupid he could not even realize that in America, there is no way a person could ever make a hundred million dollars betting on dog fights, and it is wrong to lead American children to believe otherwise.”
“Ah, that’s not exactly what I was trying to say about American sports, Jock, but I must admit, it’s a very insightful statement.”