JACK BERNARD'S TRAVELS

Posted by jdbernard743

· April 26, 2014

Remembrance of Things Past…

Memory is such a miraculous, mysterious, and elusive thing. It’s the glue that supports relationships and links us to the past. Quicksilver. A slippery source of joy and recollection. A place we go for love and safe haven, sometimes true and sometimes false.

Occasionally the picture of a street or restaurant embeds itself securely in my memory but when I revisit the scene later the reality doesn’t conform. Often, I discover the restaurant I pictured so clearly on one corner is on a different corner two blocks away.

These thoughts were triggered today when I discovered the crew hotel I stayed in as a young Pan Am pilot was just a short distance from the apartment that Marilynn and I are renting in Montmartre. I had “forgotten” about it until I saw the name – Hotel Terrass – on an advertisement in the neighborhood.

It’s been years since I thought of the Terrass. It was different than most of our crew hotels. I remembered the rooms as small and old fashioned, but today when I stopped by it was not at all as I remembered. The lobby is quite elegant, polished marble floors and blond wood paneling, with a small bar tucked in the back, period furniture throughout. So much for my memory.

Nevertheless, the visit triggered a related memory – not exactly Proustian, but my madeleine – my recherche du temps perdu.

It was 1967 and my first trip to Paris as a Pan Am pilot. I had been to Paris earlier when I was bumming around Europe on my own. I felt like I knew it well. I had walked from one end to the other, and on this first Pan Am layover I was anxious to reconnect with it.

The crew bus drove us from Orly and dropped us at the hotel mid-morning. I was excited and anxious to see the city again. I would have gone out alone, but Paris is better if shared. There was a beautiful Japanese-American flight attendant named Margaret on the crew so I asked if she would like to have dinner that night. She said yes and we agreed to meet in the lobby after we caught up on our sleep.

I didn’t have a plan, but the neighborhood around the Terrass is famous for its bistros and small food shops and within a block we found Le Basilic, ivy covered and inviting.

I don’t recall what we ate but it was a beautiful spring evening in Paris and I had a lovely companion to share it with.

As we were finishing dinner, and not wanting the evening to end so soon, I remembered a Cave bar on the Left Bank. I’d discovered it a couple of years before. It was just off Boulevard St. Germain. I thought I could find it and asked Margaret if she was up for extending the adventure. She was, so we descended to the Metro and headed across the river.

I don’t know its name; maybe it didn’t even have one. I found it by accident when my friends and I saw a couple going in an unmarked door on a narrow street near Odeon. When I asked the doorman if it was public or private he didn’t answer but looked us over then stepped aside to let us in. It was our go-to place for the next few nights.

Some internal navigator led me right to it again. We knocked on the door, were checked out, descended some stone stairs and entered a series of small rooms carved out of the rock. It was just as I remembered it; small round tables, trendy young professionals, and very expensive Cokes. Margaret and I listened to the chatter and danced to the DJ’s latest playlist in what must have been a wine cellar in medieval times.

As we talked and danced to the DJ’s mix I learned that she was from San Francisco where she trained as a ballet dancer. In her early 20s, she gave it up and hired on with Pan Am to see the world. She was tall for a Japanese woman, quiet and stately, very self possessed. As we talked, time was suspended and by the time we left the Cave it was early in the morning.

Despite the hour we were wide-awake, so I asked if she wanted to see the famous wholesale’ market at Les Halles. She was game so we jumped back on the Metro and made our way to Les Halles. I had never been there, but knew it was famous for its market stalls and small cafés. I was having a great time and wanted to keep the night alive by finding a café with French onion soup on the menu. We wandered through the market for a while watching the produce, meat, and seafood vendors set up for the morning. Eventually we found a counter where we sat on stools and slurped our onion soup amid the hustle of vendors and smell of morning coffee.

It had been a busy 24 hours and we were starting to feel its affect, so we flagged down a cab and made our way back to the hotel. We said goodnight just before sunrise, and that afternoon flew back to New York. Our paths never crossed again.

That Paris evening was magic for me. Margaret was the perfect companion, and though we never met again, she will always be part of a special memory. Les Halles is gone too, along with the late night onion soup and gesticulating food vendors. I feel lucky to have seen and tasted it. The wholesale market moved to the suburbs in 1971 and was replaced by an underground shopping precinct with an open-air sunken sculpture garden. I’m sure it’s lovely but it isn’t Les Halles.

Remember, Margaret, “We’ll always have Paris.”

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Tags : Paris

Posted by jdbernard743

· April 12, 2014

· 3 Comments

Is the Savvy Traveler a Happy Traveler?

Air travel is one of the amazing achievements of the last century. Like the personal computer and smartphone, it changed the planet we live on and the way we move around it. Almost as much has been written about the changes in air travel as about the miracle itself. Like the modern world, commercial aviation has morphed over the last four decades – gradually evolving from “luxury travel” to “mass transit” – but we should never forget how miraculous it is.

In the late 1960’s I was on a Pan Am 707 flying from New York to London. Coincidently, the actor Dick Van Dyke was on the same flight. We were both seated in First Class, and I won’t easily forget how Mr. Van Dyke amused himself and his fellow passengers by juggling oranges and sharing stories in the lounge area of that Pan Am Clipper. In those early days of the jet age First Class travel really was first class. On our way to London, Mr. Van Dyke, and I wore coats and ties and most of our fellow travelers were dressed the same. Let me ask you; how long has it been since you’ve seen anyone but a tired businessman wearing a coat and tie on an airplane? Is this important? Perhaps it is, as a marker to measure the drift from luxury travel to mass transit.

Most of the changes in air travel over the years have been related to the size, speed, and number of aircraft providing the service. The 707 that Mr. Van Dyke and I flew on was the first commercial jet airliner and carried 180 passengers, but in 1970, with Pan Am’s collaboration, Boeing delivered the 747. The “jumbo,” as it was called, accommodated 417 passengers and I remember watching the inaugural flight land at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport. The windows of the terminal were lined with hundreds of people who came out to see the incomprehensibly large airplane arrive. Last year Airbus introduced the A380 with a configuration that transports 853 passengers on two decks. Now that’s mass transit.

In 1978 deregulation changed the airline industry from a quasi-public utility that assured service to all parts of the country and fares based on a fair return on investment for the carriers into a business collective made up of corporate profit centers based on fee for service. There has been a consistent degradation of service and passenger comfort ever since, and notwithstanding the changes in capacity there aren’t many positives for today’s air traveler. Whether it’s being charged extra for baggage, treated like a terrorist at security checkpoints, or having to arrive at the airport two hours prior to departure the commercial flight experience is almost always negative these days. Still – jaded as I am about the airlines – in April I jumped at the chance to fly Business Class on the Air France A380 from San Francisco to Paris. After flying hundreds of thousands of miles stuffed in economy class on dozens of different airlines and unable for reasons it is difficult to understand to make use of those miles we were finally going to be able use some of our accumulated miles.

Here’s my story; can you relate?

We booked the flight, the tickets were in hand, an apartment in Paris was rented, a car was arranged to meet and take us to the apartment where the rental agent was to meet us and school us on the intricacies of French-locks, internet protocol, security codes, dishwashers, chauffage, and wifi passwords.

Prep for the trip went smoothly; the night before the flight we packed in time to have a leisurely dinner. In the morning a friend shuttled us to the airport without a hitch, and a smiling agent checked us in and sent us off to the gate an hour and a half before the scheduled departure.

The kinked out piece to this puzzle is that only a few airports in the world have the ability to handle the giant A380, and in order to get our special Air France treat we had to fly to San Francisco where the giant bird could be accommodated. The connecting leg from Seattle to San Francisco on Alaska looked good; we would have two hours from landing in SFO to departure on the 380. Plenty of time to transfer. An overseas trip had never started so smoothly.

We boarded the Alaska bird on time and we were settled in our seats when the Captain announced that there was a minor paperwork problem that required maintenance personnel to sign off on a repair performed the night before. No problem. I’ve been in that same situation dozens of times as a pilot. I wasn’t concerned until the Captain came back on the PA to tell us that the delay might be as long as an hour. Still no problem. We would still have an hour plus on the ground in SFO.

The ultimate surprise and disappointment came when ground personnel boarded the plane and announced a change of aircraft. At the new gate connecting Air France passengers, like ourselves, were told that we were being rebooked on Delta from Seattle – a crushing disappointment for us since we had gone to great lengths to fly to Paris on Air France and avoid Delta or United on this special trip. When the agent made the announcement and wallowing in self-pity and disappointment we thought about postponing the trip for a day but good sense prevailed. The Paris apartment was rented. The agent was set to meet us. The driver had already texted me, and Delta confirmed that our Business Class status would be honored.

I know, I know, I know… It’s hard to have much sympathy for someone who is flying Business Class to Paris on a “free” ticket, but the crazy, cranky part of me is especially miffed because the Air France ticket was purchased with Alaska Airlines miles that, in a cruel twist of fate, was going to be squandered on a Delta flight that could have been paid for with Delta miles.

It all worked out. The senior Delta flight attendants treated us well – if not enthusiastically. The food was better than we’re accustomed to in economy, although I did wince when the flight attendant handed me a foil wrapped package of peanuts. Foil wrapped peanuts in Business Class? It seems Delta hasn’t quite completed the transition from Atlanta based domestic to world-class international carrier. Management should send some staff out to see what international standards are for First and Business Class. I suggest Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Lufthansa, and Air France as models to emulate.

Writing this down helps me realize what a privileged life I have had. Yes, I was disappointed that the original plan didn’t materialize, but in retrospect, from the comfort of my Paris apartment, I am amazed at how nimble the Alaska, Air France, and Delta people were in accommodating the 14 passengers that were scheduled to connect with Air France in San Francisco. We all made the Delta flight and our baggage arrived with us. The driver, holding a “Jack Bernard” name card, was there outside of customs and he negotiated the Paris rush hour traffic expertly to deliver us to the apartment – the beginning of an exciting two month stay in the City of Lights.

Air travel has changed but human nature has not. It’s no longer luxury transportation. It’s mass transit – and it works. I miss the good old days. I miss the people who dressed up to fly. I miss the caviar and foie gras in First Class. I miss the beautiful, young, international flight attendants. I miss clean airplanes and the variety of glossy magazines that helped pass the time. But, today’s travel is efficient, relatively inexpensive, and very safe. It’s not sexy but it works.

Back to the title to this piece; Is the savvy traveler a happy traveler? I don’t think so. No one I know, flying on commercial airlines today, thinks in categories like happy or pleasurable. It’s a way to cross long distances quickly, safely, and inexpensively. First and Business Class are more comfortable and taste better, but 10 hours of dry recycled air is still 10 hours of dehydrated, desiccated, recycled air. If you don’t believe it, see what it does to the newspaper you take on board.

I’m still looking for the silver lining, the positive change that brings pleasure and surprise to air travel. As an optimist I’m looking forward to the next generation of air transportation or the innovation that brings us all comfort and pleasure. I missed the A380 this trip, but maybe I’ll catch the 787 on the way home. However I get there I’ll remind myself that air travel is still a miracle.

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Posted by jdbernard743

· April 10, 2014

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Looking Back On A Typical Day In Saigon

It’s 5:30AM. I drift slowly up toward consciousness as my iPhone alarm pushes gently through the sleep-heavy haze. The A/C and ceiling fan are purring. I clutch the sheet and pull it tight hoping to catch another minute of sleep before easing out of bed. Even at 70°F it feels chilly as I peel the sheet back and step onto the cool tile floor. In four years I’ve never seen the outside temperature fall below 75°. Saigon is hot. There are two seasons – hot and dry/hot and wet – both heavy with humidity.

As I turn the bedroom A/C off and open the door that separates the bedroom from the rest of the flat I am met with a rush of stored heat from the living room and the faint but distinct aroma of Indian spices and muffled strident voices. My wife and I look at each other. Curry and cumin at 5:30am? I pad out to the kitchen in my bare feet, get our yoghurt and two small Asian bananas, and take them back to the cool bedroom. Soon we’re too busy getting dressed and organizing the day to be bothered by the curry and cumin.

We’re out the door at 5:45 on our way to the gym but as we step onto the landing we get hit with even hotter air, stronger Indian aromas and rising cigarette smoke. We look at each other again and point down the stairway. We walk down instead of taking the elevator. Two floors below, the apartment door stands open. Suspicions confirmed. The Indian family on the second floor doesn’t use the A/C. They manage the heat and noise by leaving their front door and all the windows open. They’ve spent their entire lives on the sub-continent in temperatures like these. Are strident voices part of the same experience? I remember now that they are an arranged marriage. They were a commercial contract. It wasn’t mutual attraction. It was a business deal between families. Still, they don’t seem to dislike each other though their voices give that impression. As we descend to the ground floor, Mr. Vinh, the house-man, in a ribbed undershirt, khaki shorts, and flip-flops puts his cigarette down to summon a taxi for us. We step out the gate to avoid the smoke and wait for the cab.

Mrs. Van, the landlady at 95D Nguyen Van Thu Street, likes expatriates. She especially likes the wire transfer of US dollars into her bank account. She accepts only dollars or euros – no Vietnam Dong. She is a woman of a certain age, overweight for a Vietnamese, and always dressed in black. She lives next door in another one of her properties but is often seated on a chair in the entrance area of our building where she can watch her cash flow come and go while supervising and gossiping with Mr. Vinh.

The building is typical Vietnamese – tall and narrow. Six floors, six apartments stacked vertically above the entrance level. All are occupied by expats. In addition to the Indians there is a non-descript Belgian couple, a sexy, middle-aged French woman whose taste in men runs to good looking Vietnamese guys with motorbikes who regularly deliver her to the front door at 5am, an Australian who gets sideways with the security man when he brings Vietnamese girls in for a sleepover, and two Australian pilots who use the apartment as a short layover spot between flights.

At 5:45, with dawn beginning to break, the temp is a comfortable 81°, but it will rise to 95° later on. This is rainy season and we will watch the cumulus build all morning before it unloads in the afternoon. Saigon downpours are legendary. Buckets – complete with high winds and clogged drains. Power failure is likely, and near the river the streets will be ankle deep in an hour because downtown Saigon is below sea level. Thankfully, most of these thunderstorms are brief – an hour or two – and then the plastic rain capes go back in the motorbike seat compartments and the sky clears.

Saigon is all-day, all-night chaos. Six million motorbikes and ten to twelve million people, most of whom eat out. The men, especially the men, drink tea or coffee in the morning, beer in the afternoon, more beer in the evening, and after dinner there is always karaoke.

In many respects my wife and I are not too different from the locals; after our workout at the Rex Hotel we walk to Coffee Bean and Tea Company’s café across the square from the Notre Dame Cathedral. Notre Dame is one of the great French colonial structures left standing in the old city. Coffee Bean has the best people-watching terrace in town. Between 7 and 8:30 AM, with a latte in a tall milkshake-like glass, there is no better place to catch the morning scene. Shoe shine boys bargain to shine my flip-flops. Old women roam the terrace selling lottery tickets. Nike employees lean against the terrace wall waiting for the van that takes them to their plant in Bien Hoa. A balloon man sits on the curb and it’s easy to imagine his clutch of balloons carrying him quietly away while the rest of us watch other parts of the circus. Saigon brides in rented dresses arrive with entourages to have their pictures taken against the cathedral backdrop. The weddings themselves are months away but this is their photo ritual, and we see as an overlay to the parade of business people ducking into Coffee Bean for their take-out lattes.

Modern Saigon dresses up for work. Even with daytime temperatures in the 90’s the Saigonese dress professionally – coats and dress shirts for the men (sometimes a tie but not usually required), jackets and skirts and very high heels for the women. No business casual or casual Fridays here. I like it. It looks business-like – something we see less and less in the US.

My work with a large US-based NGO (non-governmental organization) takes me out of the office much of the day. I’m trying to raise money and awareness in order to build schools, hospitals, and water systems for underserved communities. These should be government responsibilities, but Vietnamese leaders are very clever. If they let NGO’s do the heavy lifting in healthcare and education, they can waste the country’s money on other things. Corruption siphons off huge amounts and bureaucratic waste disposes of a lot of the rest. Eventually the government will take over. The country is on the verge of success but the leaders are relatively new at it and lining their own pockets as more and more business moves in that direction. At the moment global players and NGO’s like ours are making up for pauses in government focus and attention, especially in poor rural areas. While urban Vietnam is booming the rural areas are not.

I imagine Vietnam, like China, will sort out its development problems. It may take a generation but it will happen. The bigger lurking crisis and the one that is not getting the attention it deserves is climate change. In the four years that I have been in-country there has been a ripple of awareness that global warming and climate change are going to be a challenge, perhaps even greater than increasing rice production or capturing more of the global manufacturing pie. “The IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) estimates that the combined effects of ice melting and seawater expansion from ocean warming will cause the global mean sea level to rise by between 0.1 and 0.9 meters between 1990 and 2100.” If mean sea level rises 1 meter, as much as 30% of Vietnam will be underwater and that 30% is the rice growing area of the country. Vietnam’s adaptation challenge is daunting, but at the moment the Vietnamese are trying to catch up with the rest of the world. They will deal with climate change when they have to. For now it’s about achieving the dream.

Meanwhile, Western NGO’s continue to work for the benefit of the poor while they themselves are in a unique and enviable situation. The citizens of developed countries have come to expect work/play balance. The poor Vietnamese (and poor throughout the world don’t have that luxury. They are in their paddies or their boats from before dawn until long after dark. They are hard working, determined, cheerful people who for the most part live collectively. In the West we honor individualism, but in the East it is about family and the collective. We are much more inclined to sacrifice others for our own individual good, while in the East the sacrifice is for the family or the collective.

As the day draws to a close, and after the last meeting with a client or donor ends my wife and I head for The Refinery, an old opium refinery cum watering hole that serves Western fare and Carlsberg draft. We share our day in a tented outdoor area as the Saigon heat dissipates. It’s wind down time and very collegial. The expat community is small and close knit. It’s refreshingly egalitarian and communal. I doubt that expats in Frankfurt enjoy the same small town pleasures, but Old Saigon is relatively small. Eventually, faces become familiar and there are nods of acknowledged commonality even if the names are unknown.

On the ride home we sit back and relax in the air-conditioned comfort of the cab. Mr. Vinh greets us as we get out at 95D. We hardly notice the locked gate and barbed wire over it as he slips the latch to let us in. As we enter Mr. Vinh’s downstairs space we catch a familiar whiff of cigarette smoke – followed closely by the smell of Indian spices drifting down the adjacent stairway. We’re back in the cozy, familiar warmth of our Saigon space. It’s 10pm. Tomorrow will be similar. It’s a great adventure and now we are beginning to understand why so many of our friends have chosen to stay here in spite of the noise and smells, sticky heat and inconvenient power failures. Will the country overcome its obstacles – corruption, a cumbersome inefficient bureaucracy, hesitant foreign investors, and a bankrupt banking system? I’m optimistic. The Vietnamese are strong, energetic and determined. Remember the “American War?”

As I lie in bed in the stifling Saigon night I am listening to NPR streaming news about Hurricane Sandy. Climate change is real, Bill O’Reilly. With some luck and good planning the country may succeed in mitigating the worst effects of climate change. I hope it does. The West exploited Vietnam for almost 200 years. Now the danger is from within. Will the Vietnamese leaders have the foresight to sacrifice personal gain for the sake of their people? It’s an ironic twist of fate that so many of these leaders have lost their way in pursuit of personal and family wealth.

Note:
I finished working in Saigon in April of 2012, but went back in April of 2013 to follow up with contacts. I miss the place and the people, but like all adventures it had a beginning and an end. I wish all the best to my Vietnamese friends and the expats and co-workers that were a part of the adventure.

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Tags : Coffee Bean, Saigon, Vietnam

Posted by jdbernard743

· January 15, 2014

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Eva Cassidy, Sirius XM, and Some New Voices

One night in May of 2001 in a small B&B in rural France my wife and I were chatting in front of an open-hearth fireplace with the English expat owners. Five years earlier Ian, a long haul lorry driver, and his wife, Anne, a caterer, decided to chuck it all, leave the UK, and buy a little gite/B&B in France. In the course of our conversation Ian and I discovered that we had shared interests in guitars and contemporary folk music. Later in the evening he asked me if I knew Eva Cassidy’s music? He was shocked when I told him I didn’t. “She’s one of the best singers I’ve ever heard – and she’s American. I can’t believe you don’t know her.” He almost ran to get her CD and play it for us.

Eva Cassidy was an American, born and raised in the Washington DC area where she died of cancer (melanoma) at age 33 in 1996. She was painfully shy and never comfortable as a performer. She recorded only three albums before her passing. Her last, Live at Blues Alley, is my favorite. Eva’s voice and some of her music has made its way into the mainstream now, but she was almost unknown outside a small circle of fans in the Washington DC area when she died.

It’s not clear how a BBC dj heard about her, but around the year 2000 Paul Walters started playing her music on his morning show and the response from his seven million listeners was unprecedented. Before long this unassuming dead woman had three consecutive number one albums in the UK. She remained largely unknown in the US until word spread west from the UK and she began gathering followers. By 2005 she was #5 on the list of Amazon’s All-Time Top 25 Musical Artists – ahead of Elvis, Dylan, Springsteen, The Beatles, and Ray Charles. Her rise on the charts is an improbable story. Her voice and artistry are astonishing. Her musical taste is eclectic. She defies categories. She sings gritty blues and traditional ballads. Danny Boy will break your heart. Stormy Monday will wrench your gut, and her covers of Curtis Mayfield’s People Get Ready and John Lennon’s Imagine will galvanize and inspire you to change the world.

Winter sports fans might remember Michelle Kwan’s disappointment at the 2002 Winter Olympics when she lost the Gold Medal in women’s figure skating to Sarah Hughes in what would be her final Olympic competition. They might also remember the heartbreakingly beautiful demonstration she gave at the Gala Exhibition following the medal ceremony. For that skate she chose Eva’s rendition of the Sting ballad Fields of Gold. On that night the two artists became one and when it was over the crowd sat in stunned silence before erupting in applause with Michelle in tears and the crowd standing and weeping as well. You can see it all on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wazOhkRuySI

I am always astonished to encounter a new artist whose work is remarkable but virtually unknown. Whether it’s music, dance, visual, or performing art, I am overwhelmed by how much talent – discovered and undiscovered – there is in the world. Eva is not undiscovered and unknown now. The English discovered her when Paul Walters played her version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow. There is only one Eva, but I am starting to hear more and more interesting voices and musician poets. Toby Lightman and Lisa Loeb, Jason Mraz and James McMurtry. Our kids are listening to Radiohead and Billy Joe Armstrong, but I have a difficult time leaving the folk-rock/jazz tradition. At the moment I can’t get enough of Jason Mraz. Ignoring the look in the picture below, you might enjoy hearing him tell a story and blend folk with skat-jazz-improv in a new mode. This is a live interview and performance of his signature song I’m Yours: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ttEzMKE0r0. There is nice backstory here that puts it squarely in the folk tradition – but with a twist.

I have to confess that my interest in new artists was energized by my introduction to Sirius XM Radio. It has become my guilty pleasure and the key to a world of new music. Last summer, on a long road trip, we were introduced to Sirius. Two friends loaned us their camper van and it had Sirius XM installed. Anywhere, anytime, as long as there is sky above, those satellites beam the music (and sports, and news, and politics and almost anything else you might want) down. No commercials and no BS except right wing talk radio. I’m addicted. There is a Grateful Dead station, a Jimmy Buffett station, there’s Springsteen, Beatles, Singer-Songwriters, Broadway Show Tunes, Opera, Classical, 5 kinds of Country, Hip-Hop, Electronic Dance, Christian, Latino, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s rock,. You want it; Sirius has it, but I find that I’m drawn to the Singer-Songwriter/New Artist channels, the kind of music that motivated me to buy a guitar when I was in my 20’s and listen more closely to the storytelling lyrics. Now I look forward to getting in the car and driving for an hour or two. It’s part of my continuing ed.

I’ve lost touch with Ian and Anne. I’m sure they are still there in rural France, but my recent emails have bounced back. I’d love to see them and thank them for the introduction. Eva’s family has released six more albums since 1996. Some are compilations, but there are new songs on each of them. You can listen to my favorite female singer of all time sing 20 of her songs, uninterrupted, on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeNxrfMrbI8

Enjoy…

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Tags : Eva Cassidy

Posted by jdbernard743

· December 31, 2013

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The Wolf of Wall Street: What Are The Messages?

The Wolf of Wall Street brought in $18.5 billion in box office receipts last weekend. I contributed $12 and came away feeling like a binge drinker – there was too much of too much. America’s appetite for excess is splashed across the screen – money, drugs, car crashes, naked women, kinky sex, stocks, bonds, hookers, yachts, bespoke suits, expensive sports cars, trophy wives –schlock and awe from the opening scene to the final one three hours later. It’s like a Hugh Hefner remix of Caligula and The Office.

The character at the center of the film is a real life person named Jordan Belfort, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, whose stock brokerage firm defrauded investors using high pressure sales in a pump and dump stock scheme that generated huge profits for the firm and over $200 million in investor losses. Belfort skimmed profits to fuel his out of control lifestyle and when the scam was uncovered he ratted on his friends, spent 22 months in a Club Fed minimum-security prison and agreed to a long term plan to pay restitution to the clients he defrauded. Now he lives in a luxury apartment in Manhattan Beach California, plays tennis every day and has a new motivational speaking and sales consulting business. Many of his investors lost their life savings. What do you think the chances are his investors will be around to reap anything in the restitution plan?

From what I can gather Belfort is the same snake oil salesman he was before he went to prison – and unrepentant. Why should he be – Martin Scorcese and Leonardo DiCaprio just released a glitzy film about him that is creating Oscar buzz. He lives at the beach, has a lucrative consulting business and a new blond shiksa in his life. Life is good for Jordan. Here he is hawking his own book.

Does this look like a man who screwed thousands of people out of their savings and is remorseful for his actions? Not so. Instead, he is enjoying a rebirth of celebrity as the new Gatsby. Is it a coincidence that DiCaprio starred in last year’s film about Gatsby’s equally over the top lifestyle?

I don’t begrudge anyone their pursuit of a good life, but I am outraged at the way the Feds have let the scammers and financial manipulators who drove the country into the ditch get off with a finger-wagging hand slap. Jordan Belfort is small potatoes, a short, little, slick-willy from Long Island with big, wannabe appetites. Over the last 30 years we have seen bigger scammers – Ivan Boesky, Michael Millken, the Hunt brothers, Bernie Ebbers, Kenneth Lay, Dennis Kozlowski, Bernie Madoff, Allen Stanford, John Rigas, Anthony Mozilo, and Kerry Killinger manipulate markets and treat themselves like royalty. Madoff and Ebbers are the only ones likely to die in prison.

I hated The Wolf of Wall Street, but it is provocative. I keep asking myself “What is the message? What are the lessons? What are we supposed to take-away from this film? Skim, scam, cheat, steal, hide it away, rat on your friends and you might just end up with a California tan and a new blond on your arm? Is that the message? Is that what this film is offering up? The film is a raunchy airbrushed Playboy magazine fantasy. I could almost hear the nauseating voice of Robin Leach walking us through Jordan’s mansion on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. The film is about wretched excess and cheating poor schlubs who work hard at their humdrum jobs and dream of a secure retirement. I don’t think Scorcese and DiCaprio intended to send that message but it’s there if you choose to see it. The Wolf is billed as a comedy but I don’t believe cheating people is funny.

The film is upsetting but our fury and upset shouldn’t be directed at Scorcese or sleazy, greedy wannabes like Madoff and Belfort. They’re disgusting, but they aren’t the ones responsible for driving the US economy off a cliff. The real culprits are a bunch of lazy Congressmen and those Masters of the Universe at Bank of America, Chase, Citibank, Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, AIG, Washington Mutual, Countrywide, and Lehmann Brothers who were responsible for The Great Recession and the loss of trillions in Americans’ retirement savings. Most of them are still in place or hanging out under their golden parachutes. They are continuing to work out ways to enrich themselves and screw the middle class? Why haven’t we had one prosecution of a CEO or senior level executive responsible for masterminding the collapse of our financial system? How could we let Lloyd Blankfein and his crew at Goldman Sachs off the hook for selling collateralized debt obligations (CDO’s) and credit default swaps (CDS’s) to their clients while, at the same time, betting that those same instruments would fail? Heads they win; tails you lose.

How could regulators let Washington Mutual and Countrywide open the floodgates and deliver a river of mortgages to people they knew could not afford them knowing that they would end up in foreclosure? These simple strategies ruined families and whole communities, but the people responsible are still unpunished. I saw a well-dressed Kerry Killinger at the Seattle Art Museum recently and last week I read that he is close to settling on an undisclosed fine with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Why isn’t he in tatters and in jail? Not only was he responsible for the largest bank failure in US history, but his greed and criminal negligence caused the loss of 9,200 jobs. Where was the Federal banking oversight when this was happening? What were the regulators doing while Seattle burned?

Today, many of 2008’s top bank executives are still around. Not only are they around, but they are drawing even larger salary and benefit packages and strenuously lobbying to prevent further regulation of the banking and mortgage industries. Didn’t the lessons of The Great Recession sober them up? Apparently not. They have dug in and are fighting any new regulations, even those that could have prevented the crisis. They are taking their money and influence pedaling to the same gutless Congress that ordered the 1999 repeal of Glass-Steagall, the 1933 law that would have prevented the self-dealing orgy that brought down the economy in 2008.

There is some reason to be hopeful, in spite of the money and corporate pressure. The most significant regulatory change is be The Volcker Rule, that piece of the Dodd-Frank financial reform of 2010, that prevents banks from making speculative investments for their own accounts that do not benefit their customers. It looks like the rule will be implemented, but you can bet that the guys with the green eyeshades in the backroom at Bank of America are trying to figure out work-around strategies. If it sticks, The Volcker Rule should help prevent cataclysmic failures like the unregulated 2008 collapse.

I hope The Wolf of Wall Street is overlooked in the upcoming film award season. I have to say I feel the same about American Hustle. It is an interesting period piece based on the Abscam bribery scandal of the ‘70’s – well acted and unintentionally funny in parts (Can a film about bribing six congressmen and a US senator be funny?), but it is yet another vehicle celebrating scammers and ambitious frauds. When the Academy Awards come around in March I’m pulling for films like Philomena, Nebraska, and 12 Years a Slave, movies with an unambiguous moral center. I hope the Academy chooses to celebrate artful, creative movies showing good people doing honest, funny, or courageous things that highlight the human condition and the potential for good. They’re the ones that get my vote.

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