The Second Act Part OOOOPS!

Ever write something that you thought was just fundamentally brilliant right off the top of your head, and then, after checking your facts, discover that you have made so many errors that the facts no longer in any way support your point? I just did. So much for my fun, but overly long, and as it turns out, wrong, blog entry on The Second Act Part II. I know this is the blogosphere and we are fairly much free to lie our asses off or just say stuff off the top of our heads, but... wrong is wrong.

I am senile. Soon my dick will not work. And then... death.

The Second Act was about the Automotive Industry and it was a great yarn. And it's a subject that I know like the back of my hand, and yet... when I got to the part where I was weaving the story, I sort of assumed I had my facts straight, that my air tight memory was guiding me true as always. And it was a great story! Great, but wrong.

Hand me the drool cup. I await dicklessness. Wowsers. Totally beyond minor repair. I had foot notes, too. Culled entirely from memory. I couldn't be wrong if I am able to pull facts straight out of my ass without looking, right? Doesn't this sound like I know what I am talking about:

10. Depending on how you look at it, Flying Bill’s last two acts are a replay of the Icarus Fable or the single most skillful example of green mail ever perpetrated. (Green Mail is the fine art of being paid to go away or being paid not to do something. In Flying Bill’s case, it’s a two-fer.) Needless to say, the DuPonts and other corporate types who had spent many years of their professional lives cleaning up Flying Bill’s mess at GM were less than thrilled to see him return. Flying Bill’s position upon his return was not as strong as it had been previously, however. He was not completely free to sell stock and buy things willy-nilly. At first, it didn’t seem that simply making acquisitions was at all Flying Bill’s new strategy. After all, he had got himself into a position to buy GM by actually making a best selling car. (Even if he stole it from GM by buying out Overland.) For a time there was a peaceful stalemate between him and the DuPont faction.

But nothing lasts forever. Flying Bill had a vision of diversifying GM beyond automobiles. On his initiative, GM had founded Fridigair, a maker of air conditioning systems. This didn’t set well with the DuPont faction, who wanted GM focused on automobiles exclusively. Soon all the old fights and grudges were back on the table.

At the height of the acrimony, Flying Bill announced that he was going to be filing for personal bankruptcy. His story is that he had guaranteed ‘a friend’s’ margin play on stocks and that, although it would wipe him out, it should not affect his GM holdings. That this story doesn’t make much sense on the face of it is clue that it probably was just a negotiating ploy.

The DuPont faction was aghast. Having its CEO file for bankruptcy would do unimaginable harm to GM. The board immediately offered to pay off Flying Bill’s debts plus a premium for his stock. Anything to keep him from filing!

Of course, Flying Bill didn’t file for bankruptcy. In fact, he walked away with enough cash to found yet another car company, which he called Third Empire. Just to show that he had learned something, this new company was geared at the vast middle of the market, the Chevy through Buick band, exclusively. From a standing start, Third Empire was able to construct flexible state of the art factories, had its own in-house design staff and had several nameplates, including Dumont and Star. (All this in the middle of the Depression.) It was like GM only without the legacy costs or overhead: a firm set up to eat the auto industry’s lunch and only its lunch.

Flying Bill’s brand spanking new factories were so good that they were amongst the first confiscated for war production. The government liked them so much, they never gave them back. Although Dumont was compensated for his factories, remaining in the car business without them proved problematic.

He should have quit right there. An utterly mercenary person would have.

After a short time spent attempting to farm out his production and pumping money into dealerships which had nothing to sell, Flying Bill quietly and honorably wound down the business. A younger man might have been able to build GM for the 4th time, but Flying Bill’s time was up. It is said that he lived the rest of his life in diminished circumstances, per one report employed as the manager of a bowling alley. He died owing no one anything, which is hardly a gambler’s fate. Whatever loss of wealth he may have suffered came from circumstances that were not of his making. No one man would ever personally own a mass production auto maker again.

What incredible freaking drama! Pity I screwed up two different guys. Flying Bill Durant was actually put out of business by 1933, which means his plants could not have been taken over by the government.

Yep yep yep. Dickless drool cuppery here I come! And I screwed up Harlan Sanders and Pope Manufacturing and basically wound up with a thesis that I could not support. Not with facts, at least.

Next time have source materials near by. Next time you put this much effort in, make it a work of fiction.

On the other hand, my novel is going really well. Yep yep yep. I wonder if I have buggered that up too, but am too dispossessed of faculties to realize that it is gibberish. I thought the following made sense:

Meanwhile, R.E. Olds is accidentally proving Henry Ford right. Olds had been operating his own miniature version of Pope Manufacturing, fashioning assembled cars in various configurations for retailers. It’s a build as sold operation, which has recently branched out to making its own car types from the ground up. Then they have a fire. The factory, its inventory, molds and dies are destroyed, except for two examples of the cheap models. In an effort to stay in some form of business, they take the insurance money and start cranking out just the cheap, curved dash, merry little Oldsmobiles.

(They were called Olds Motor Cars initially. The popularity of the curved dash model spawned a sheet music song that christened the cars as ‘Oldsmobiles.’ The firm decided not to fight it and renamed itself.)

R.E. Olds thought they were onto something. The market for these affordable, reliable cars seemed unlimited. He suggests to his backers that this become the firm’s concentration. And his backers suggest to him that he take a pile of money and hit the door. Olds leaves and goes on to found R.E.O., later a maker of station wagons and trucks.

Yeah, well it's close. Not close enough to be true, but close. It was another guy who left over the cheap car issue. R.E. Olds left his firm over another issue and it wasn't until much later.

I used to know the secret identity of every superhero. I mean, including ones from the 1940s. I even knew the freaking Owl's secret identity. The Owl! The one from Dell in the 1940s! Now, all gone, all gone...

Fit me for freaking diapers! Where is my nurse? It's dark in here. It's all going so very dark...


This Just In: I do not consider myself in any way a ‘foodie’ nor a food critic. In fact, I consider such people beneath my considerable contempt—poser gluttons, the whole lot of them. I’m just a guy who wanders around, occasionally sticking things in my mouth when I am hungry. I only attempt to alert the public when something I have stuck into my mouth has turned out to be an abomination before the sight of all of Providence.

Wrigley’s New Extra Fruit Sensations Sweet Watermelon is such an abomination. I should have been clued in when the package highlighted that it was “Accepted by the American Dental Association,” not known as a real pal of the gum industry. It’s full endorsement reads “The ADA Council on Scientific Affairs’ Acceptance (sic) of Extra is based on its finding that the physical action of chewing Extra sugar-free gum for 20 minutes after eating stimulates saliva flow, which helps to prevent cavities by reducing plaque acids and strengthening teeth.”

I know the ADA is a whore, but this is a new low. If we read carefully, the gum actually does no more than a stick of celery might. Perhaps the ADA is counting on the gum producing projectile vomiting, an assurance for any fool who dares keep this foul gunk in his unfortunate mouth for 20 minutes. I personally gave up within a minute.

The flap says “Yesterday, impossible to fit an entire watermelon in your mouth. Today, not so much.” Not if you slice it up into little chunks and feed it to a chemically infused frog who then spool chucks up on a wad of gum for you, oh master scientists. Did anyone at Wrigley bother to taste this?

Next: I am in the middle of writing a novel and revising short stories. Perhaps I will present one of my rejects complete with its quite fun editorial commentary. Or perhaps Mister Fun will instruct us all on the fine art of becoming instantly famous. Or maybe Newsweek will resume pulpdom. If I have time, I may complete my rant against psychics for Halloween. In my own dickless, senile way, that is.