If It Bleeds, It Leads

Two of the most gracious readers of this blog are older Jewish men originally from down-state New York.  One is my father.  The other is a guy who lives in a park in the Southern Tier named Richard Malowitz.

Richard handled evictions for my park in central New York until his health got the better of him.  I often tell him that he could have been the meanest lawyer in New York.  He has a bitter, jaded view of human nature.  He thinks that people are a bunch of bottom-feeding, knuckle-dragging, scum-sucking, uncle-fucking hooligans who would sell their mother for an ice cream cone if they were not too lazy to get out of bed, take the needle out of their arm and kick their baby-daddy out of the way.  Only, Richard thinks in all caps.  He really thinks that PEOPLE ARE A BUNCH OF BOTTOM-FEEDING, KNUCKLE-DRAGGING, SCUM-SUCKING, UNCLE-FUCKING HOOLIGANS WHO WOULD SELL THEIR MOTHER FOR AN ICE CREAM CONE IF THEY WERE NOT TOO LAZY TO GET OUT OF BED, TAKE THE NEEDLE OUT OF THEIR ARM AND KICK THEIR BABY-DADDY OUT OF THE WAY.

Richard is also a smart, decent, thoughtful guy, a mensch, and a friend.  I enjoy his company and I value his advice.

Here is a comment that Richard sent in response to a recent blog post:

I AM SHOCKED THAT A MAN OF YOUR VAST EXPERIENCE IS IN THIS BUSINESS, EXPECTED BETTER

I will not ask whether A MAN OF YOUR VAST EXPERIENCE really means ‘a knuckle-dragging, scum-sucking, uncle-fucking little pischer’.  I will read the embedded question as, ‘Why did a guy like you get into the manufactured housing business?’  

The answer is, ‘I enjoy it.’  Here’s why:

• Time  Before I owned parks, I was a big-firm lawyer.  The hours sucked.  I spent sixty or more hours in the office each week and was on call 24/7.  Lawyers charge by the hour.  Big-law firms have large numbers of attorneys who are paid a fixed salary, and a small number who hold equity.  The more hours the salaried lawyers work, the richer the equity-holders get.  That creates an incentive for the equity-holders to suck those salaried lawyers dry.  My life was crushed by that incentive.

I still work.  Park ownership is an active business, not a passive investment.  I manage people and do the pencil-pushing.  That takes time.  But unless there is a melt-down at one of the parks, I clock off at 5:00 during the week and don’t work weekends. 

Melt-downs are the exception, rather than the rule.

• Principal and Agent  The second-worst thing about practicing law is that a lawyer is always an agent, never a principal.  You represent your client.  You never represent yourself.  At best, your client’s needs are neutral to what you want.  Sometimes, they are morally repugnant.  Yours is not to reason why.  Yours is to drink the client-service Kool-Aid and die.

When I run the park business, I am the mail-room gofer and the secretary.  I am the janitor, the supplies clerk, the bookkeeper, the accountant, the tax preparer, the chauffer, the in-house legal team and the building project manager.  But I am also the head of the strategic vision department, and I hold all the equity.  That makes it easier for me to care about the well-being of the enterprise than it was in my former career.

• Nicer People  One of my old bosses was a kiss-up-shit-down weightlifter gone old with nasty-looking nasiolabial folds, died hair, an inferiority complex about either the size of his dick or the quality of his education (I could never tell which), an inflated sense of his own importance and a habit of cheating on his wife.  Another was a managing director who hung a brass simulacrum of a pair of human testicles sustained in fluid in a scrotal sack from the handle to the door of his office.  Another asked me to falsify facts in an article.

People who live in mobile home parks are as hard-working, pleasant and honest as anyone.  There is the odd outlier, but no more than anywhere else.  And I prefer working with meth addicts to working with bosses with nasty-looking nasiolabial folds and inflated egos.  The meth addicts are better company, and easier to reason with.

• The Mission  A Native friend tells me that his grandfather told him that, during the worst of the genocide of the nineteenth century, the Lakota had a saying: ‘When the buffalo are all killed; when the aquifers run dry; when the crops fail; when your horses and dogs die; when only Grickle-Grass grows – then you will know that you can’t eat a basis point.’

I used to help people slosh money around for a fee.  Now, I provide clean, safe and affordable housing to people who need it.  My work product used to be intangible.  Now, I can walk through a park and see roads that we have patched, homes that we have rehabbed, and families enjoying open space and home ownership.  I am doing good.  I can see the results of my efforts.  You could not say that of my former career.

• Utils The worst thing about being a lawyer is that lawyers traffic in limited good.  If a teacher enlightens one student, he does not make another student ignorant.  If a doctor cures one patient, she does not make another patient sick.  But if a lawyer wins a case, his opponent’s client loses.  In law, the sum of the outcomes is always zero less attorneys’ fees.

That is not only true for litigators.  Corporate lawyers screw opposing counsel’s clients before they get to court.  Antitrust lawyers screw consumers.  Securities lawyers screw investors.  Bankruptcy lawyers screw creditors.  Environmental lawyers screw the planet.  T&E lawyers screw pretermitted heirs.  Constitutional lawyers screw – well, everyone.  Tax lawyers screw widows and orphans.

I have written previously that mobile home park management entails limited good.  And that’s because it does entail limited good sometimes, when you run into a bad apple.  If someone is not paying lot rent, or breeding pitbulls, or dealing meth, you need to get rid of them.  It is an ugly process and innocent parties sometimes suffer.  But you only do it when the utils add up to a positive number.  If it is done right, it is always a positive-sum game.

Limited good happens in mobile home park management, but only as an epiphenomenon.  In law, it is the objective.

So – to answer Richard – I whine on the blog because shitty stories make good copy.  If it bleeds, it leads.   But manufactured housing is a business where you can do good as well as well.

An old friend of mine is a sex worker.  We went to elementary school and middle school together, and we have stayed in touch since then.  For a while, she lived in an intimate relationship with a management consultant.  I asked her once, “Did the difference in your professions ever cause a problem?”  She said, “Not at all.”

I said, “How’s that?”

“Well, we are more alike than different.  We both leave the house looking good and come home looking beat-up, and we both travel for work.”

“Surely, you don’t travel as far as he does to get to your job site.”

“There are things you don’t know about me, honey.  Could you be a dear and zip me up?”

“You are a tease.”

“We both have to laugh at clients’ jokes even if we don’t think they are funny.  He uses a manly belly-laugh to make them feel good.  I simper and giggle.  Some of our clients have bad breath and too much body-hair.  Some vote for Trump.”

“It sounds terrible.”

“Our hair and makeup look nice when we leave the house, but they are mussed up when we come home.”

“You already said that.”

“And neither of us are lawyers.  We both thank our lucky stars for that!”

She looked at me.  I looked at her dog, chewing on an ice cube.  I said,

“What – that’s the punch line?”

“I’m a hooker, sweetie.  Not a comedian.”

The dog gagged a few times, spat the ice cube out and went back to gnawing on it.  I asked,

“Would you go for a small-time mobile home park owner?”

“How small?”

“Two medium-sized parks in New York State.  Only a hundred twenty-five lots under management, but he owns the whole capital stack.  He’s not getting rich, but he makes a living.”

“What do you think I am!”

“That’s another joke.”

“Could you massage my feet, please?”

“Of course.”

Her feet, ankles and calves always smell nice.  She said,

“My next client is a pain in the ass.  He is sixty-eight.  He used to live in Westchester, but now he lives in south Florida.  He dies his hair yellow, has nasty-looking wrinkles, you know, the ones that go next to your mouth –“

“Nasiolabial folds.”

“, and thinks he’s a big swinging dick, but let me tell you, honey.  He is anything but.”

“So, stop turning tricks.  Buy parks.”

“Maybe I will.  I don’t know why I still do this.”