[orconn]

Last evening my wife commandeered my usual TV to watch the red carpet parade at the Academy Awards. Since I was to lazy to move away from this situation, I happened to catch several of the interviews with this year's batch of lovelies. Now maybe it was "lowT" or some other health issue but I found the women on display to be in the "nice looking, but no cigar" category rather than the "vava-voom!" category of some years past. Now I am no avid watcher of this annual Hollywood public relations fest, but on those occasions when I have sat through at least part of these usually hum-drum affairs I have at least been titillated by some pretty fine looking women. Not so last night, it was one lady after another who looked as though she had forgotten something, something to perk up her otherwise dull dress or in some cases "misadventures" in fashion.

I am not fan of the snotty Lara Spencer ( recently re-elevated from the "Antiques Roadshow" to "Good Morning America." but I have to admit she was about as good as it got last night. For goodness sake, some of the male talents mothers were better turned out and made a better impression than the lackluster candidates for Oscars!

After about half an hour of this mediocre show of Hollywood's pulchritude I got back on the web hoping that my pulse would get back up to normal.

I was interrupted about 10:30 EST when my wife came in to tell me an old friend, Hal Needham, had been honored with an Honorary Oscar" for his lifetime contributions to the industry. About time, he was the most profitable Director in Hollywood during the late seventies and most of the eighties. His movies may not have been artistic triumphs, but they sure raked in the cash and didn't cost much to make. A lot people don't know of all the technical developments that he either developed or underwrote, not just in the area of stunt work but in the areas of camera platforms and lighting. So my congratulations to Hal, an honor much deserved!

 

[Cadillac_Fan]

Wow. Hal Needham is a legend. I did not watch any of that smug Hollywood festival of self-adulation, but it is good to know Hal garnered that accolade. You must run in some intriguing and fascinating social circles, orconn!

 

[orconn]

Back in the mid to late 1980's Hal Needham and his company were clients of mine. My firm represented the company on Wall Street and provided investment banking and investor relations services as the company became publicly traded. As a consequence I met with him and his personal staff on a weekly basis over a three year period. During these times at his office on Cahuenga Blvd many of his fiends and cronies from the motion pictures industry dropped by (such as Dom Delouise (sp), Bert Reynolds, Jackie Gleason, and my favorite Chuck Yeager etc.) and I got to know some of them and have lunch with them on occasion have lunch with them. I enjoyed working with Hal and found him to be a very down to earth fellow whose word was as good as it gets. This period of the eighties was when Hal had come off the commercial film successes of earlier in the decade and was still owner of Bandit Racing with Harry Gant as its' driver. I met Harry a few times and got his auto graph and "Bandit" decals for my 9 year old son. Hal had a large and distinguished group of friends, as you can imagine, and the company's annual meetings were, as they say, "star studded!"

Although I was raised and lived around many industry people, my company specialized in emerging public companies in the fields of natural resources, medical technology and high technology, Hal's company was the only "Industry" (entertainment) company I ever represented. But I have to say working with Hal on his company's development was an interesting and pleasant experience.

 

[talismandave]

Wow. Hal Needham is a legend. I did not watch any of that smug Hollywood festival of self-adulation, but it is good to know Hal garnered that accolade. You must run in some intriguing and fascinating social circles, orconn!

...other people ran in Orconn's intriguing and fascinating realm! :lol:

 

[The-Dullahan]

Okay, I am going to be honest here.

I have no idea what the Academy Awards are, but after reading about your opinions of [unknown celebrity from Antiques Roadshow that I have already forgotten the name of] and the appearance of whomever else was present, I feel my response from your thread about the American Olympic Team's uniforms applies here and thereby have dug it back up via google search of "CadillacForums Olympic Uniforms" to borrow the same photograph.

Whatever these Academy Awards are, this would make them far more worthwhile. I may even know what they were!

 

[BigCadMan_1]

^^^Man you must be on some heavy med's!!^^^

 

[The-Dullahan]

No, I just have far more important things to worry about than what the Academy Awards are.

Turns out whatever it is does not directly affect my existence. This makes knowledge of it's existence rather wasteful and without benefit to my own.

 

[dkozloski]

I haven't paid any attention to the Acadamy Awards for at least forty years. To me they represent everything that is sick about the current American pop culture. As far as that goes I don't believe I have ever sat through the whole "Oscars" ceremony in my entire life.

The current stars show the ravages of drugs and booze to an alarming degree.

 

[Cadillac_Fan]

In addition to the current stars' hypocrisy, these quixotic and delusional imbeciles actually believe the crap they produce is of untold benefit to the Western canon and mankind. They are bereft of any intellectual heft or gravitas, yet hold the fatuous belief they are on par with the likes of Jonas Salk, Alexander Fleming, Mother Teresa, J.S. Bach, Audie Murphy, etc. Hollywood is truly the cesspool of dirty, self-adulating philistines.

 

[orconn]

Hey, Cadillac_fan, tell us what you really think!

 

[Cadillac_Fan]

Orconn, that must have been a great time and era for your profession. Was it relatively tame or an "anything goes" 24/7 atmosphere of hedonism and endless wealth?

I've read interesting books on high finance and investment banks including The House of Morgan, Barbarians at the Gate, and Inside Out. Moreover, I was fascinated by some of the early junk bond players and the firm of Drexel Burnham Lambert. I think the unraveling humbled Michael Milken, Dennis Levine and Ivan Boesky.

After college, I tried in earnest to gain positions with Goldman Sachs, Wasserstein Perella, and Warburg Dillon Read. I was interested in LBOs and the sell-side of M&As. Unfortunately, I did not have the academic pedigree to get my foot in the door.

After my final Goldman Sachs rejection postcard (yes, postcard), I gave up on that pipe dream and headed out to DC for eight years and became a government employee. Oh well!

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Sorry for my earlier diatribe. I often think these celebrities today think way too much of themselves, especially when they are given platforms to testify before congressional committees, attend White House policy meetings, and address United Nations conferences.

I can appreciate when they use their celebrity for advancing a philanthropy or helping the poor and underserved, yet when they become self-appointed experts in the fields of energy, natural resources, transportation, and budget matters, that's when I have to just roll my eyes and cringe.

 

[orconn]

What do you mean "used to be?" It seems to me that the last twenty years of under regulated and unenforced environment, which lead to financial crisis of 2008, is continuing unabated .... morality and the "common good" are strangers and the barbarians sit on the thrones and rule with impunity!

I entered the business back in the 1970's when all the "onerous" regulations put into effect to counteract the greed and stupidity that had brought us the "Great Depression" still ruled the day. I watched as the succeeding administrations rescinded these regulations, despite the clear evidence, the savings and loan scandal leading the way, that left unregulated and unenforced the financial community would always put the short term making of a buck ahead of those actions best for the common good of the community and the nation. Next came the insider trading scandals and the rise of some Wall Street firms from the status as "bucket shops" to the Wall Street "petty elite." Milken and his ilk got off very easy and have continued to work the financial world illicitly for there own personal gain.

The American public for the last forty years has failed to recognize that it is their money and their pockets, in the form of their pension funds and retirement investments, that these crooks are savaging for their own personal gain. The American voter has continued to ignorantly laud and vote for politicians who have dismantled the checks and balances that kept the wolves from Wall Street's hen house, and not only opened the doors but patted the robbers on their shoulders (all the while collecting a pittance in bribes to look the other way). We can't blame any one party or administration; they have all been guilty of either ignorantly removing the regulations that protected the rest of us from the marauding few!

 

[Cadillac_Fan]

Most interesting perspective, orconn. No doubt the culture is perverted with a sick corporate ethos. The LIBOR scandal, the corporate welfare folly of TARP, the Community Reinvestment Act (subprime mortgages) and many other examples point to errant and failed systems of corporate governance and regulatory/enforcement mechanisms. I think if the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation were to ever perform real audits, the cataclysmic findings would be devastating for pensioners.

Nonetheless, my apologies for derailing your thread off-topic. It is always enlightening to have an intelligent and engaging discussion with someone who has firsthand knowledge and the real-life professional experiences.

 

[orconn]

Bureaucracy (of any kind) leads to uniformity of perceptions and actions. When bureaucracies evolve into institutions "group think" replaces individual morals and ethics. This is true not just of corporations but also of our government institutions, the only thing that saves institutions from committing crimes against the common good are regulations. But regulations without sincere and adequate enforcement only encourage the "group think" to believe they can get away with corrupt acts. It all starts with CYA (cover your ass) and becomes institutionalized corrupt practices which eventually destroy the institutions value to society.

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^^^ So much for that toot!

 

[BigCadMan_1]

No, I just have far more important things to worry about than what the Academy Awards are.

Turns out whatever it is does not directly affect my existence. This makes knowledge of it's existence rather wasteful and without benefit to my own.

Yes I do agree with you Dullahan that the academy awards are useless, in fact I believe they are a poor representation of American pop culture . With that said I do know what they are & it's impact on social media, I have yet to watch one for more that a few minutes. The point I was making was that if your not "on heavy meds" and being monitored by the state you seem quite deranged.

 

[orconn]

Karl Marx said "Religion is the opiate of the masses," today he would most likely say "Entertainment, in all its commercial forms, is the opiate of the masses!"

 

[CadillacLuke24]

Hollywood celebrities are overpaid, underworked, overopinionated, and undereducated.

 

[Guest]

Hollywood celebrities are overpaid, underworked, overopinionated, and undereducated.

+1 award shows suck

 

[Ranger]

The Academy Awards are much like the pyramids............... of the pharaohs, by the pharaohs and for the pharaohs.

 

[ben.gators]

Was I missing something?

Yes! You were missing the shallowness and the emptiness of (modern) Hollywood!

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Hollywood celebrities are overpaid, underworked, overopinionated, and undereducated.

Well said! I would also add overdosed and overboozed to this list!