Over-50

Edge You Probably Have on Billionaires: Friends

According to Forbes, Leon Black's real time net worth is $10.4 billion. 

Of course, that kind of wealth attracts predators. And perhaps no friends. There's that wonderful line from the new film "Death on the Nile." It essentially says that when you are wealthy there are no friends.

That makes extreme wealth-builders like Black a wonderful gift for Big Law.

Lawyers simulate the attributes of friendship.

Since Black's former mistress Guzel Ganieva filed a lawsuit in June 2021 in the New York Supreme Court Black has become  the gift which keeps giving. That lawsuit is "Ganieva v Black," which you can read here. 

In it the plaintiff alleges sexual misconduct. Later she amended it to include the allegation that Black attempted to loop her into sex trafficking for Jeffrey Epstein. 

In response, through his team of Big Law lawyers Black countersued, alleging defamation and exhortion. Ganieva filed to dismiss that lawsuit. More work for Black's lawyers.

Last Tuesday, through his lawyers, he alleged a smear campaign, naming names and seeking out phone records. Here is my article on that latest legal development, published in O'Dwyer Public Relations.

Legal processes are slow-moving. All this will be going along for years. Big Law can enjoy this gift for a long time.

God bless those not on Forbes list of the most wealthy. We have friends.

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"The Matrix Resurrections" - Is the Evil Psychoanalyst Right?

"The Matrix: Resurrections," like "Spider-Man," is a success at the box-office.

Also, it is catching on in terms of memes.

Specifically, what is resonating is the metaphor of the blue pill, given by Thomas Anderson's villain psychoanalyst.

That has surfaced in the collective concsiousness as a symbol of mind control. That chokehold is in contrast to the red pill which opens the human being to the truths of existence.

Anderson makes the shift from blue to red. That one decision propels him through the door to his mission to change the world. His soulmate in that is his romantic partner Trinity. 

The messaging of the film is not simplistic. For example, what controls Trinity is the concept of the family. No, the family - and by extension any other system - is not in itself bad. The peril to individual autonomy and global values is set in play when that value overrides all others.

The analogy, of course, is this: Nothing wrong with working long dedicated hours in Big Law. What is wrong is embracing that ethos as the only one which makes sense for how to live a life. The bad effects are not simply the overwork. In addition, those knocked off the partner track could wind up broken. Their design for professional life had been too circumscribed - and determined for them externally. 

No surprise, that one-dimensional thinking in Big Law is reinforced with the gala rewards. That's the way the blue pill is coded to operate.

Take the dynamics at Kirkland and Ellis. There are the giant bonuses. More recently what had been added to the goodies is a more promising shot at partnership. K & E reduced that rite of passage by a year to nine.

However, even internally in Big Law viewing the practice of law through that tiny lens is being questioned.

In a Bloomberg Law interview, Paul Weiss Chairiperson Brad Karp, for instance, indicated a need to press down on the brakes on extreme work.

Interestingly, in the influential film "King Richard," the audience experiences the reverse of the driven helicopter parent. The father of Venus and Serena Williams insists that his children have a normal childhood. The road to stardom won't be non-stop exclusive practicing and entering competitive events. One afternoon, instead of practicing, the whole family packs it in and drives off to Disney. 

It's possible that "taking the blue pill" could replace "drinking the Kool-Aid" as the buzzphrase for caving to external sources of influence. 

The issue, though, is how seriously will society consider the implications of the blue pill?

The evil psychoanalyst smugly assesses human nature as eager to be controlled.

However, there may be a lessening of that force field with the decline of trust in institutions, ranging from government during COVID to Big Banking during the era of crypto. There may seem to be no choice other than making one's own decisions about values and then how to live them.

Way back in 2015, a Yale instructor William Deresiewicz warned about success-directed mind control in the book "Excellent Sheep." That detailed how willing ambitious youth in elite colleges are to buy into whatever was labeled as strategies for professional upward mobility.

More recently, some youth have opted out of that whole college pressure-cooker to invest what would have paid for tuition and living expenses in crypto. A number of them, documents Jefferies, have emerged as the new market segment to purchase lux goods, both in brick-and-mortar and in the metaverse.

Meanwhile, as The Wall Street Journal has been featuring for about a year, too many of those excellent sheep have wound up with staggering student loan debt and low-paying jobs. Yes, they opted for the blue pill. 

Marketing communications for blockchain, cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and much much more (including waterproofing, roofing, and shipping containers). You want results. And that’s exactly what you get partnering with Genova Communications. Fees customized for your unique budget. Complimentary consultation - janegenova374@gmail.com.

The Metaverse - Boomers Aren't the Only Not-Sures

" ... the need to police virtual worlds to protect safety and free speech - and onerous regulation related to this - may turn out to be the biggest stumbling block [to the potential of metaverse]" - Harry Robertson, Insider, December 25, 2021.

This realization - avatar groping is already a concern - could deflate the hype about the metaverse.

Right now, yes, Wall Street is bullish in terms of the virtual space as an investment.

Sports and entertainment have already put down major stakes in Decentraland and The Sandbox.

And the popularity of sci-fi films like "The Matrix Resurrections" and "Spider-Man" has made other kinds of realities (including other universes) acceptable to the mainstream.

But, unlike Web2, Web3 might not be allowed to operate as the Wild West for an extended period of time.

Law firm Reed Smith had been an early adopter in warning about the legal complexities of the metaverse. Here its seminal white paper flags just some of the issues.

They include:

Intellectual property

Artificial intelligence

Data protection and privacy

Content licensing

Ownership in the metaverse

Distributed ledger technology

Reputation and deepfakes

Antitrust.

Underlying all that, of course, is the crypto economy. That's what the metaverse runs on. Law firms which already have launched formal crypto practices include:

Dentons

Paul Weiss

Wilson Sonsini

Perkins Coie

Rimon Law

Cooley

GoodwinLaw.

Also there are boutiques, like Blue Blockchain Law, totally in that space.

The complexities of the legalities related to crypto are detailed in Paul Weiss' official decription of its crypto practice. That, it states:

" ... can assess risk associated with cryptocurrency transactions; evaluate emerging data privacy and cybersecurity obligations relating to client data; counsel on anti-money laundering, sanctions and other financial crimes risks; advise on crypto-related derivatives trading agreements; analyze cryptocurrency exchanges and trading; structure and negotiate technology and media licensing, including via non-fungible token arrangements; and advise clients on evolving tax reporting obligations, regulatory licensing requirements and many other areas."

Among the entities which could create the regulatory frameworks are Congress, US Treasury, Federal Reserve, and other federal agencies. 

But that's, to use the cliche, just the tip of the iceberg.

Another possible constraint on the full commercialization of the metaverse is the lackluster attitude of the majority of members of Gen Z. Those have been born between 1997 and 2012 and they are designated as the driving force for the metaverse. After all, they grew up with digital and with video games.

But, a recent Harris poll found that only 38% of GenZ had assessed the metaverse as the next big thing and welcome it into their lives. One grim reality is that the gen had spent about two years of their short lives so far COVID-banned from in-person encounters and hunger for that, not virtual anything.

It is not unthinkable that crypto could break off as a stand-alone, not necessarily associated with supporting the metaverse.

Crypto currencies ranging from bitcoin to solana could function primarily as investments, for trading, and as payment vehicles.

That scenario could be what some law firms envisioned when they structured their blockchain practices. They did not focus too much futuristically on NFTs and the metaverse.

Instead the box they were locking themselves in had to do with the direct financial transactions derived from the blockchain. No surprise, Paul Weiss, which is positioned just that way in the box, is known as a Wall Street firm. 

During 2021, about $30 billion in venture capital had been invested in crypto, reports Yahoo.

Crypto shows no sign of "going away." However, the future of the metaverse seems to be in play. Emerging is a growing concern about the public interest. Groping incidents, for example, will get more attention.

Marketing communications for blockchain, cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and much much more (including waterproofing, roofing, and shipping containers). You want results. And that’s exactly what you get partnering with Genova Communications. Fees customized for your unique budget. Complimentary consultation - janegenova374@gmail.com.

Those Irrelevants - Desperate, Intrusive (and so annoying)

No, we don't "feel sorry" for one-time power brandnames such as Bette Midler and the World Economic Forum as they struggle to stay on, too long.

Business and lives are in too much turmoil. It's enough to just keeping our own enterprises and personal affairs from coming completely undone.

The New York Post fills its digital front page with 76-year-old Midler's offensive rant about West Virginia. She labels that state "poor, illiterate and strung out." Yet, this is an era in which we need grace and eloquence. How we miss the Kennedyese lofty rhetoric. 

Then there is the eco-unfriendly World Economic Forum at this time of growing panic about climate change. Annually, it would facilitate the Davos, Switzerland summit for which attendees often took private jets to get there. Even commercial travel consumed plenty of fuel. 

What the hell was that Davos antic about?

COVID has put a stop to that. Let's hope forever. Given how the irrelevant become increasingly more aggressive when they are losing their influence and power, expect the World Economic Forum to do something big - and probably annoying - to get attention.

All those Irrelevants do, though, have the fade-out option.

The classic case of that had been Johnny Carson. He hosted a just-in-time (pre-irrelevance) good-bye gala. Ironically Midler performed during it. Then Carson went poof. No clawing back into the limelight. 

So, what's on our wish-list for gentle fade-outs this holiday season? Those would be gifts to The People.

Here are Law and More's Recommendations:

The Clintons, along with side players like Huma Abedin. If it sounds and looks like Hillary is trying for a comeback, maybe even a run for US President in 2024, it well might be.

Public affairs player Bob Dilenschneider who had been Roger Ailes' personal PR representative. His firm's website is already stuck in 2019 and 2020. Really. Look here at The Dilenschneider Group. In another universe he had headed all of giant PR agency Hill + Knowlton.

SNL. It hasn't been funny for a long time. What grates is that everyone is trying too hard.

Leon Black. He stepped out of the wilderness where the fallen-from-grace take refuge to attend a Mike Milken financial pow-wow - and file a high-profile lawsuit. That blew any progress in reputation restoration. Acquisition of wealth seems to have no necessary correlation with wisdom. Along the way, Black's errors in judgment threw shade on Apollo, the Museum of Modern Art, and law firm Paul Weiss. 

The Dollar. Block's head Jack Dorsey may be onto something in predicting it will be replaced by bitcoin. However, the betting crowd might opt for Ether, mined on the Ethereum blockchain, not bitcoin.

So, who or what is relevant?

That answer is simple: Anyone or anything not self-absorbed, therefore not stuck. The "in" term for that kind of stuck is "grandiose narcissism." 

Is it possible to get unstuck?

Let's be positive.

Of course there is a passageway out of infatuation with the self, especially a legacy.

The New York Times shook off the arrogance. It's profitable once more.

Big Law is trying. It's not there in terms of human-resources policies but the simultaneous pile-on of crises has widen the lens through which it views what it does - especially to human beings. 

And there is Spider-Man 2021 who again learned that with power comes responsibility. Box office results documented that the message resonated. Yes, it's all about the public interest.

Marketing communications for blockchain, cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and much much more (including waterproofing, roofing, and shipping containers). You want results. And that’s exactly what you get partnering with Genova Communications. Fees customized for your unique budget. Complimentary consultation - janegenova374@gmail.com.

Boomers, So Here We Are, the Same Space We Were in during 1961

The Steven Spielberg version of "West Side Story" is amazing.

That includes the decision not to provide subtitles for the Spanish used.

After all, the acting is brilliant enough to transmit the emotional content. There's no ambiguity about Maria's determination to engineer a fresh start in America when she tells her brother he's not her boss. 

But that message of what extreme hate does to a society is, unfortunately, as relevant in 2021 as when it had been first produced in 1961.

Back then, as in the mean streets of pre-gentrified Jersey City, New Jersey, there really were rumbles. Yes, they did use chains. Only guns weren't commonplace.  

Then as now hate of some group provided an individual and communal platform for identity. 

The people in my old downtown neighborhood (Bay Street is currently gentrified) were not gang members. But they had so little going for them financially and in social status that they had hate down cold. We children were socialized to hate a growing list of categories of human beings. We had to talk and walk that part, at least until we were liberated from that force field by going out of state to college. God bless how the GI bill helped make college universally accessible in America. 

Most of America has mutated into that lacking-a-sense-of-self old neighborhood. Aside from the very wealthy no one seems to feel good about herself or himself.

Yes, wealth has become a kind of public nuisance. Perhaps the plaintiff firm specializing in that litigation - Motley Rice - should persuade a liberal state attorney general to file a public nuisance lawsuit against those on the wealth-messaging front lines. 

So obvious: The reality of what wealth is all about gets rubbed in by the legal media.

Bloomberg Law headlines what was supposed to be a let's-get-up-to-date interview about Paul Weiss with the expected PPP of $6 million.

Even in my good years as a communications strategist/content-provider, I stay stuck in six figures. Of course, I feel like sh_t. Hell, don't we all. The universal mea culpa for not having achieved great wealth is palpable. 

More recently the legal media outlets have been consumed with the bonus wars. Paul Weiss kicked that sort of thing off early a few months ago with its special bonuses for the "committed." Idealistic law school students probably are getting the message to ditch that set of values. Status, influence, and power in practicing law are about the funny money of millions of dollars, isn't it. Wake up and smell the money. 

It doesn't take a Harvard Medical School psychiatrist to explain that when people don't feel good about themselves they will grab at what will relieve that feeling, quickly. It could be drugs. It could be the hardening of hate. 

The legal media is just the tip of the iceberg on featuring wealth. The rest of the media also defaults that way. So do all the moving parts of society in America. After one very good year in earnings from my communications boutique the usual tax-preparer treated me with deference. Smirk.

Meanwhile, law firms, which have such reach into the global values (just read the UK's RollonFriday) should cool it on branding in terms of PPP and associate compensation. 

Bring the conversation back to the intellectual stimulation of practicing law and the satisfaction of creating effective solutions for clients.

There had been an inspiring anecdote floating around that the ethos of law firm Jones Day had been an analogue to the selfless labor of medieval monks laboring on behalf of a higher cause.

For that reason, compensation was not discussed in the firm. At the time that provided a kind of not only justification for but also a celebration of the black-box culture. Could Jones Day be onto something? It owns the litigation space. Its lawyers are tireless in preparing for trial.

Perhaps other law firms can adopt that kind of value system. That's emerging in some corporations which are retrofitting themselves to be purpose-driven. I create some of their marketing material. And the outreach containing that purpose (beyond generating wealth for shareholders) has been measured to get the best outcomes. That ranges from an uptick in sales to recruitment of talent.

It's not unthinkable that the notion of having a vocation will return. Law schools could require a 250-word essay on How Will Law Be Your Vocation?

In the present moment, yes, doing business via the blockchain can establish a new kind of level playing field. As blockchain's operations become more mainstream people might feel they are getting permission to just be ordinary human beings. That's okay. Live your little lives. 

Boomers recall that had been the vision of the counterculture. It could happen for real now, giving the technology of the blockchain. 

Marketing communications for blockchain, cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and much much more (including waterproofing, roofing, and shipping containers). You want results. And that’s exactly what you get partnering with Genova Communications. Fees customized for your unique budget. Complimentary consultation - janegenova374@gmail.com.

The Boomer Struggle to Grow Up - Enjoy Revisiting Some of That in "Licorice Pizza"

"Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film [Licorice Pizza] is an antic comedy about a child actor in 1970s California, but it’s also a bittersweet reminiscence about how difficult embracing adulthood can be." - David Sims, The Atlantic, November 26, 2021.

The plot line of "Licorice Pizza" is a familiar one: the extreme reluctance to become an adult.

In it, 25-year-old going-no-where Alana Kane loops into the teenage life of 15-year-old child actor Gary Valentine. That Peter Pan or Patty Pan meme, of course, permeates pop culture in America. After all, we are a young nation, not like Poland or Italy. The theme plays out everywhere from film "The Big Chill" to the television series "Seinfeld." 

In real life we boomers borne witness to that when the counterculture outlived its usefulness. Too many - called "hippies" then - hung on. They never did what adults are supposed to for getting and holding a good job, being part of the middle-class ethos of being tethered to a mortgage, and saving enough for retirement. 

Not that we who made that rite of passage into adulthood enjoyed the process. Actually, for most of us something hardened. Yes, the music died. And it's only now that we can let up on the intensity of a career (they call that semiretirement) and just work at what we love that we can circle back to the joy and fun of pre-adulthood. 

Naturally, there are those - and they're the ones who make partner (usually early) at the Cravaths, Skaddens, and Mayer Browns - who seem to be born adult. When we were fighting the good fight during the counterculture on the campus of the University of Michigan, they were in the law school law library.

We didn't know they were there and not with us because our conception of the world, like that of all children, was totally egocentric. Only years later, when we had settled down into corporate life and they were working as the in-house counsel did we find out that they were "at Michigan" when we had been.

The jury is still out on the question: Is it possible to completely escape, rather than just delay, adulthood? I have seen instances of that and none of them were good.

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Peace on Earth, as in the Disney Film "Encanto" - But The Snub Packs Such a Power Punch, Ranging from Queen Elizabeth to Anne Murga-Ring

"Queen Elizabeth's holiday snub prompted Harry and Meghan to quit royal family." - New York Post, November 28, 2021.

That's what Christopher Andersen claims in his book "Brothers and Their Wives." It's due out Tuesday and already ranks high on Amazon - 14,802.

During this sacred holiday season, the meme is Peace on Earth. In the new Disney film "Encanto" that's showcased on the family level. Only by fixing all the cracks in relationships is the family saved. At the box office "Encanto" is doing better than "House of Gucci" which is about a Humpty Dumpty kind of family which can't be put back together again.

Since the beginning of time, families have had a tough time getting along. That goes all the way back to "Genesis" in the Bible. Cain had a resentment against Able. There was a murder.

In my family, my younger sister Anne Murga-Ring and I became estranged in November 2003. That was 18 years ago. What I experienced as the classic snub then and over the years when I tried to mend the fissures is sadness. However, I also wonder what Murga-Ring experiences. Is it a power surge? 

Queeen Elizabeth operates not only a lucrative "firm." She also has to see to it that all the moving parts of a political structure are in sync. That means she has to be totally in-control.

To do that in terms of the human relations part the snub is a power tool. Research on mirror neurons proved out that we human beings influence each other cell by cell. Yes, we human beings feel the snub. Acutely. The resulting feuds can go on for centuries.

However, as with everything, there is a price to pay. Harry and Meghan seem quite effective in taking both the Queen and the whole institution of The Royals on. That could hasten the end of that expensive habit in England. And the end seems inevitable. COVID should be teaching that nation to diversify the economy way beyond that bit of tourism.

In a Fortune 50 where I had worked full time the grapevine had it that an executive, with a Brahmin New England pedigree, got the boot because he snubbed his superior. The latter was from a middle-class background. Supposedly the incident involved not including the superior in a lunch invitation. 

This holiday weekend I am hearing the usual reports in my 12-step support group about invitations not being extended for Thanksgiving dinner. The hurt goes deep. The focus in the discussion is how to transcend the need to hurt back. The snub can put in motion so much destruction. 

Marketing communications for blockchain, cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and much much more (including waterproofing, roofing, and shipping containers). You want results. And that’s exactly what you get partnering with Genova Communications. Fees customized for your unique budget. Complimentary consultation - janegenova374@gmail.com.

 

No, We Haven't Earned the Right to Be Discouraged

Lapsing into a bit of disppointment about your career or pursuit of post-career income from working?

The best route out is to share the experience of those who have had to overcome greater obstacles. And made it big, despite having to jump through all those hoops.

So, treat yourself this holiday season to the film "King Richard." It's the chronicle of how two black girls from a lower middle family made it in the white-dominated sport of tennis.

The father Richard Williams, with love and bullying, never allowed Venus and Serena to become discouraged. In addition, he had been able to hold himself from drifting into the traditional black kind of despair.

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Grandkids Need Perspective on Social Networking? Bring Them to See "Ron's Gone Wrong"

Barney, the main character in "Ron's Gone Wrong," is a middle-schooler in the town of Nonsuch who dreads the 18-minutes of recess.

He has no friends. No one joins him on the bench. Those who could be his friends are preoccupied with their B-bots, programmed and produced by tech giant Bubble. Those walking, talking, and digitally connected devices are packaged and promoted as a way to connect. Yeah, sound familiar?

But the middle-schoolers with the bots are actually lonely. They are obsessed with page views and likes. They live more online than in real life. There's no sense of a collective ethos and caring about each other. 

Also familiar: The bots really serve Bubble as a way to retrieve, aggregate and interpret data. That's applied to pushing more products and services onto the kids. Unlike the current ESG mindset of going beyond the bottom line, the CEO is totally focused only on the stock price. 

Barney doesn't have a bot. That is, until his birthday when his widowed father and grandmother pick up on his loneliness. There's a waiting list for bots but the two manage to zero in on a damaged one.

That's Ron and he's not programmed like the standard bots. Through trial, error, and persistence Barney and Ron learn to be friends. There's a bulletin board in a shed on Barney's property with a list of qualities and behaviors which are prerequisites for friendship. 

(Spoiler). Long story short, that rogue bot winds up reprogramming the standard bots. The middle-schoolers learn to make friends with each. They come to care about each other, including Barney and Ron.

That's not what the CEO of Bubble has in mind. He attempts to destroy Ron. The kids save both Ron and Barney. The spirit is right out one of those old Mickey Rooney - Judy Garland movies about coming together to save Pop's store.

The good-guy coder Marc Weidell exposes the CEO as a profit-only monster who hates kids. Weidell takes over the corporation. From then on all the bots will be ones for real connection.

Barney no longer dreads recess. He not only has friends. He is hailed as a hero for creating those new forms of connection. In the process he almost had died. And the concept of social networking is not a baby thrown out with the bath water. It can be a platform for good. 

In essence, "Ron's Gone Wrong" is the unique kind of whistleblower. It captures the worst of social networking as operated by Big Tech. However, it also preserves the value-add it can contribute to a society.

Marketing communications. It’s about results. And that’s exactly what you get partnering with Genova Communications and Coaching. Clients range from crypto to industrial trades. Fees customized for your unique budget. Complimentary consultation - janegenova374@gmail.com.

As in Most Communities in America, in Japan Mobile Homes Carry Stigma

The Japanese film "My Hero Academia" unleashes the battle between heroes and the mastermind of a planned catastrophic chemical attack. It's a mixture of video-game war action and anime. Audio is in Japanese. There is an option of subtitles or dubbing. 

What grabs the American audience is that in that movie mobile homes symbolize a personal downward trajectory. The resident of the trailer had once lived with his father in a traditional house. Then darkness had fallen on the family. 

What's interesting is that in many communities in the U.S. mobile homes also carry stigma.

Exceptions include pockets of Arizona. In fact, in Tucson, AZ, the homes can cost $230k and lot rentals are not cheap. 

Those who can't afford conventional housing can bypass the overall bad image of mobile homes by purchasing a RV. That represents everything from freedom to adventure. 

Marketing communications. It’s about results. And that’s exactly what you get partnering with Genova Communications and Coaching. Clients range from crypto to industrial trades. Fees customized for your unique budget. Complimentary consultation - janegenova374@gmail.com.