Chapter 1

July 6, 2010

"Another dust storm. It's so thick today you can taste it." Harold wiped some sweat from his forehead with a rag. "On the good side it's really, really hot and the rainy season is several months off. I just hope that Russian air conditioner keeps working. If it breaks again, it will be a year before the new low bid will get here. What were they thinking? We're too far from a Sears for service. Much, much too far. How did we end up in this sorry state of affairs? We should have bought Japanese."

Harold took a bite of his pan-blackened lichen sandwich and opened a caffeine-free, preservative-free, sugar-and-cyclamate- free, color-free, carbonated beverage drink. He leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on the table. Cakes of dry, reddish dirt dropped off his boots onto the table. "How did I get into this sorry state of affairs?"

July 6, 1995

Harold walked into El Tacquito Grande in San Francisco. It was a quaint little restaurant. The proprietors called it that. In reality it was a South of Market dive. The kind of place where a table facing the street was popular, not only so you'd know when to duck from the drive by shootings, but also so you'd know when to phone the insurance company about your stolen car. George Stone and Harold MacAnish were relaxing after a long day. A few greasy burritos, a couple of those Mexican beers, Dos Coronas or something. They would meet after work every couple of weeks, do some Mexican food, and cure the world's ills. Well, on this particular day in July it was actually warm and pleasant in SF, a very rare occasion. After the food, arrived the conversation got louder and more animated.

"George! I've got it! You'll love this one. The all-commercial channel. It's perfect, a TV station with only commercials. It would be the only 100% pure capitalism channel. We'd get what, a one percent market share from the remote channel flippers who stop to see what is on.".

"Harold, they have those things already. Haven't you seen the happy people in sweaters on Saturday morning?" George was the voice of reason. "Besides, where are we going to get 100 million dollars to start a TV station?"

"No, this station wouldn't have infomercials. No just old commercials. You know we just do commercial reruns. It's a cash cow George, a total cash cow. It would be great, no programming to develop. Oh, on special occasions we could show ads from old super bowls, or the Cleo awards, famous Alka Seltzer commercials, or a retrospective set of Excedrin classics. But not too often, because that would raise the overhead. We would simply show commercials. 100 million dollars is a lot of money. Funding, where is the funding for such a great idea? George you could raise the money couldn't you?"

George shook his head.

"So you don't want to do TV. How about a restaurant? Hey, I've got it - a new line of sushi shops. The sushi business is falling apart because of that parasite. What is it called?"

"I'm the business guy-Harold. I am not the fishologist."

"Oh, come on! People are terrified of that awful fish parasite. I remember now, it's anisakis simplex and pseudoterranova decipiens. Big deal, just because it burrows through your intestines and eats it way through your vital organs. Unless of course it crawls back up your throat and mouth and you cough it out." Harold covered his mouth and coughed a bit.

Two women at the next table turned to look at Harold. The larger one with the black fleur de lys tattoo on her neck folded her copy of Pretty Piercing magazine and then they both changed tables.

"It usually just lives in the fish until it attacks the sushi eater. I know how to kill the parasite. We could save sushi as an industry."

"Harold. You're telling me that some stupid fish parasite normally killed by cooking is ruining the raw bait as a meal business? How are we going to make a buck on this thing?" George had to filter though Harold's ideas.

"I know it's ridiculous George, but imagine the terrible danger. People don't have an understanding of relative risk. They ride up to the restaurant on a Ninja bike, light up a cigarette, wander inside, and then they are afraid of some fish parasite? Get real. Well we could stop all that nonsense. We would sterilize the fish."

"How?"

"I'd zap em with clean, safe, radiation. It's perfect. Hiroshima Sushi? Nagasaki Sushi? Which do you like better George?"

"You are going to lose your shirt, dude. There isn't one person on this planet who will fund it."

"Well how about an exercise tape? Those are cheap to make and sell a lot. We could get Jane Fonda. She'll sell millions. We hire her for some piddling sum and you produce it. Jane Fonda's Anaerobic Exercise Tape. It will be great. She hops around for a few minutes with a plastic bag on her head, gets hypoxic, passes out. Do you think Ted will want a cut?" Harold may have been a doctor and a great scientist but somehow, somewhere he had spent too much time under the florescent lights. They had cooked the sense out of him.

"Are you kidding, Harold? Ted will take it all, of course. Where did I get you? Stick to science." George shook his head in dismay.

"I've got it. How about a diet pill? This is a special diet pill. It wouldn't actually make you lose any weight, and it's only for women." Harold could do an idea a minute.

"Who would want a diet pill that didn't make you lose any weight?"

"This one is special. It simply moves the fat from the hips to the breasts. We would make millions. Both men and women would be thrilled."

"Can you make such a thing? This is good, Harold! This idea would work!" The two strecthed back and took swigs from their beers. Then George examined Harold's starry-eyed mug. "You have no idea how to make this drug do you? What am I going to do with you? Garcon! Another round of beers." George raised his finger dramatically to get the waitor's attention.

"Oh, George. Why are we here? What is the purpose of man, woman, life? There must be some universal truths." "Get real, Harold. People have been searching since the beginning of mankind for answers and never finding them. You've got to start simple and build up. You've got the fundamentals - you never have enough money, time, chocolate, etc. If it works, don't fix it. If it hasn't been tested, it doesn't work. And if it hasn't been tested in the specific situation you need, it can't possibly work. Buy low, sell high." George was a deep philosopher. It was getting along in the evening and the ideas were getting a bit more universal, more ripe, more...

"George! I think I have it. The most important concept of all. The one that man has been searching for, for eons - the purpose of life. The purpose of life is to be happy. Whatever that means to you. Early man had food, women, the great outdoors. Then came religion to complicate life and tell him when he could have woman and food. Some took it to extremes. But I digress. The point of life is to be happy." Harold was not really a hedonist but his philosophy bordered on the simplistic.

"How? We went to school for decades and no one ever told us the purpose of life. Not only didn't they tell us the purpose of life, they certainly never told us how to achieve that purpose." George had never been an academic. He was way ahead of the teacher and saw that what they were teaching was unconnected to his goal of personal financial success.

"George. I 'm getting close here. I have a purpose, we just have to figure out how to achieve it. How to be truly happy? The modern age of virology sure put a damper on the greatest pleasure in life, or at least for the sane person. So if nookie-nookie is out, what can replace it?" Harold counted his dates by the decade, so his chances of catching something were minuscule. But he still feared it.

"Money? Money is the great score keeper in the real world, Harold. The more money you have the better a person you are. Look at the billionaires, everybody thinks they are smart. Of course until they shoot someone. Look at what's his name. He's got ten billion dollars-he must be smart. I admit it is a bit transient. A few deals later he's only got 50 million, he isn't as great. Who was that guy with 5 billion dollars, big ears, that everyone wanted to be president? Money is the great score keeper."

"If happiness is the purpose of life, how do we make money and stay happy?" Harold got right to the heart of the matter. "Well-well-there must be a way. Work, work is OK, but it is too, too... You know, it requires work. So how do we make ourselves happy?"

"By making a lot of money without doing any work." George's philosophy was simple.

"Great idea George, but how do we do it?" Occasionally Harold was practical.

"How? OPM." George always had an answer. Well sometimes. Occasionally he had a good answer.

"Opium?" Harold was both obtuse and a bad speller.

"Not opium, Harold. That makes you a lot of money and then gives you the opportunity to be the wife of some very large and smelly man for 20 years to life in a correctional facility. Other Peoples Money, OPM. Money is a tool, Harold. You don't think those billionaires worked more hours and saved it up, do you? No, they borrowed, twisted, extorted, and collected that money from other people. People who frequently didn't know it was missing."

"So how do we make ourselves happy without working?" Harold didn't get it.

"With OPM. How many times do I need to tell you? We needed a scheme. A scheme, that of course, doesn't require any work. A scheme that will bring us great happiness and therefore achieve the greatest purpose of life. And not one of your kooky ones either Harold." George looked at him with feigned disgust.

"George. When is the time when people are most happy?"

"After sex?" George knew it just like everyone else.

"Yes, that is right, right after nookie-nookie. There must be some neurotransmitter, hormone, peptide, etc. that is released after, you know what. George you are going to love this one, even the research part of it is fun. We move to Malibu, open a gynecology clinic and research lab. We sign up those bikini clad women you see in the beer commercials. We take blood samples before and after."

"Before and after what?" George suddenly understood and began to smile. "Oh."

"We then do subtraction chromatography to identify the changes between before and after. Once identified, we put the whoopee compound in a nasal spray. Bingo! Fame, Fortune, and Total World Happiness. Even the science part would be fun." Harold did have a certain-je ne say qua- quality about him. He wasn't the type you would see in a rain coat in the summer in parks. He was a scientist. Need we say more?

"Well, Harold. The thought of all that wonderful bikini clad womanhood participating in science makes me gasp but I think my wife would kill me. And the FDA would be a pain in the ass. Nope. I am not going to help you drug everybody into total world happiness with the whoopie compound." George had been married to Catherine for a couple of years and didn't want to screw it up over one of Harold's schemes.

"I can see it now George. Great Sahib, I have traveled far and wide. I have climbed the greatest mountain in my bare feet over crushed rock and yak dung, to seek great wisdom from you. What is the secret of the universe, oh great Sahib?" Harold folded his arms in what he thought was an indian guru disciple pose.

"Don't track yak dung into the house, Harold. We don't have a great Sahib to ask the secret of the universe but we need a plan to make a bunch of money and thereby lease with an option to buy great happiness." George wanted to get Harold back on track.

"OK, George. I've got an idea. Real estate! It is a bit far away. Needs a bit of development. But, oh, I think you'll like this one." Harold started to smile and his eyes widened. It wasn't intestinal gas, it was an idea that would change his life forever.

George Stone knew what to do. Usually George sifted through the intellectual chaff Harold generated, dumped 99% of it, and ran with the good ideas. This time something else happened, something that would change them forever. George, in his infinite wisdom, took the idea and decided to run with it. If he could sell electric guitars, lumber, paint, perfume, computers, and information, he could certainly sell this idea. It was a great idea, it just needed some development. George was not really into development work, he knew how to avoid work. It was simple, he would say. "The best way to avoid work is to have others do it for you." It is even better if you can get those "others" to get paid a salary which you can take a cut of while they are working for you. George always had an angle and this project was no exception. He decided to hire a worker. Well, not exactly hire. That implied payment for service. This, like all of George's projects, was low budget to avoid overhead. Having no scientific skills of his own, he decided to enlist some help. He had the perfect person for the job. Bob Grange.

George always had a perfect person for every job. Well, if not the perfect person, someone who was adequate to the task and cheap. "How about Bob Grange?"

"Bob Grange is perfect: no ambition, very little imagination, mentally challenged, but he does have good grunt type skills." Harold had known Bob for years.

"Bob can do the ground work and we can take the glory." George had used Bob before.

"A few more Coronas, George and anyone could be capable of the task."

"But Bob is a great choice." George liked to use Bob. He liked to use anyone but he, George and Harold had all gone to high school together.

"Bob was super smart until he hit Berkeley. There is something in the air or the water around that campus that slows people down, George. Ten years at Berkeley and he graduated with a degree in what?" Harold had lived near the Peoples' Republic of Berkeley for years and knew its effects on people.

"Everything and nothing." George recognized Bob's problem.

"What is he doing now? Programming. Talking to Bob is like running a record player really slowly except there aren't any Satanic messages."

"Bob won't muscle in." George realized a major strength of Bob: his weakness.

"Ok. Get him to ask around, do the computer simulations, find someone to do the biochemistry we need. Then he will fade away." Harold was fading at this point himself.

The plan was simple, George would call Bob and get him working on the ground work. Harold was too busy to do it himself. That was the model. Harold came up with the concept and George would decide if it was economically sound and figure out how to go about exploiting it. George would then manage the resources and get it done. A great system as long as the concept was fundamentally sound and they didn't end up on a day time talk show explaining why the National Enquirer had carried the story. Harold would go back to his conventional grind and do his conventional thing. If this scheme worked - paradise? Naw, but a great idea.

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