The Mischief Maker:

 

The one thing that most qualifies me as a rogue or a scoundrel, is that I enjoy making mischief with words.    People who know me well, have learned not to trust what I say, because I usually mean something else.  I like to get reactions from people by asking unfathomable stupid questions.  The more perplexed people are the better.  Here’s one: we’re at a soccer games and I turn to my left and stranger next to me.

“Do you know the score?”

“2-2,” they might say.  

To which I ask, “Do you know which team has which 2?”  

 

Nestled amongst that laundry list of things I’ve done, there are actually some pretty substantial careers in some pretty rarified circles.  In fact I’ve worked inside all six major power networks of the world - 

1. NY finance  - Chase Manhattan Bank 

2. Old and new media - Fortune Magazine and various tech rags. 

3. Corporate business - Sea Pines Company and Harvard Business School 

4. DC government - Office of the late, Senator Paul Tsongas 

5. Nonprofits and academia - One World Inc, Harvard and Harvard Business School 

 

I did my best to make mischief in all those spots, but it didn’t amount to much.  Neither did I.  The only thing of lasting import I gained from those experiences was understanding.   Glad I did my time inside the system, because after enduring my baptism there, I understand pretty well how the world works from the inside out.   Believe me, it’s works a lot different than people on the outside think it does.  I count among my friends, former classmates and housemates many of those are now running the system.  I was a proctor in the Harvard dorms where Chief Justice Roberts and former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke were going through freshman rites and rituals.  One of my former suite mates is now head of one of the worlds largest hedge funds.  Another classmate is head of the largest.  Another is head of PG& in San Francisco.  Another proctee of my is is Chairman and major stockholder in one of the world’s largest oil companies.  We used to play cribbage to calm his nerves before exams.  Today he maneuvers easilty in corporate boardrooms and non profit board.

 

Two former classmates have won Nobel Prizes.  Two of those former classmates, came within a sound bite of becoming President.  I don’t particularly admire either.  Al Gore was and is a supercilious stiff and Mitt Romney has always been a living incarnation the system.  But more on that later.