Email from Aging Pop Stars

I probably shouldn't share my personal emails, but...

_________________________________________
From: Eric Clapton (TheEric@GuitarLegend.org)
To: Patrick Hillman (patrick.hillman@gmail.com)
Sent: Friday, May 16, 2008 12:01 AM
Subject: RE: Clarifying Questions -- "After Midnight"

Dear Patrick,

Thank you for writing. Even after some 40+ years of world-renown, I still LOVE receiving fan mail.  Your note's timing was especially auspicious, as it arrived during a time of deep personal reflection. In fact, I'm happy to address your queries directly!

 

To begin, you asked, "You've stated many times that, 'After midnight, we gonna let it all hang out.'  My sentiments exactly, Eric. Really. But, in the interests of those with, say, small children or other early morning obligations, is it possible that we could let it all hang out *prior* to midnight? Say, tennish?"

I'm sorry, but:  No, Patrick... only AFTER midnight should we (or anyone, for that matter) let it all hang out.

Your follow-up question posed, "If not, is it possible that we could let it *partially* hang out after midnight?"

Again, no (sorry :-/) ... After midnight, you see, we gonna let it ALL hang out.

 

I hope this clears up the matter for you.  Thanks again for your support!

 

- Eric Clapton

 

ps  How cool: My middle name is "Patrick"!!  ;-) Write back soon!!

If I Were a Billionnairre...

 

You know those extra-tall stools you always see in pool halls?  Wouldn't it just be the bees knees to build a toilet into one of those?

Horn Dog Enterprises (HDE) Shot Down...

 

Monday day:  Drove 350 miles with two colleagues from Horn Dog Enterprises (HDE), including one owner who routinely says "asposed" (as in, "Hey, they're not asposed to do that!").

 

Monday evening:  Arrived at our destination. Dined at a roadside dive that proudly featured six different flavors of A1 sauce. Realized I'm painfully out of touch with steak sauces.

 

Monday late evening:  Found myself parked at a penny slot machine called "Mystical Fortune." While it certainly drained my pennies, it did so slowly and, I have to admit, in a rather entertaining way.

 

Tuesday morning:  Met my horn-dog colleagues for breakfast at a 50s diner.  Ordered the $3.50 grapefruit juice and the $9 fruit plate. (You actually get a lot of fruit for $9.)

 

Tuesday mid-morning:  Met with the C-level execs and board committee of a nearly half-billion dollar business. One member of their board (at whose invitation we were there in the first place) had inexplicably developed a vigorous hatred for HDE well in advance of our presentation (making for the worst business meeting I've experienced in nearly 20 years).  (Seriously, the board member in question interrupted our presentation, announced that her committee was done with us, motioned for us to leave, and then got up and walked out of the room).

"I'm beginning to thaw now," I'd said to the HDE owner afterward (once out of earshot from their board).
 

"Thaw?" he asked.
 

"From sitting so close to that miserable ice-cold bitch."

Tuesday day:  Drove home with two HDE colleagues, including one owner who thought that board members of nearly half-billion dollar companies aren't "asposed" to be miserable ice-cold bitches.

The Hillman Estate, Prepped 4 Sale (Almost)

 

I believe the outside of our house (shown above) is about as nice now as it's ever going to get, so we snapped off some pics. The house is in no way ready to list yet, but I wanted the listing photo to show the bushes in bloom. That only happens in early May each year. I photoshopped out a couple of electrical lines and may have deepened the sky just a tad.

 

If you squint, you can tell that I neglected to fully close the garage door. I'd left it open in case one of the local feral cats had been inside.  Just in front of the garage is our free-standing firepit.  I love that damn thing. The other night, my daughter came inside and said, "I've got a great fire going outside. Wanna see?"  "In a few minutes," I said, "I have to finish up some things."  "Okay," she said, "well, I better get back out to tend it before I burn down the garage."  I tell you, she's a chip off the ol' block.

 

In Pittsburgh, there's a term I'd never heard before: "nebby"  (not to be confused with the legitimate word, nebbish, meaning timid. Our nebby could be a regional northeastern term for all I know, but I'd never encountered it outside of Pittsburgh.) Anyway, it means nosy.  It also surprises me very little that there should be a special term for this quality here, as so many of my neighbors demonstrate this quality in spades. These types of neighbors can become a REAL pain in the ass.

 

As such (and for other reasons I won't go into now), we're going to attempt to sell the house (when the time comes) as discreetly as possible. I'd prefer not to have a "for sale" sign in the yard, for example. And, I don't want any "open house" events.  In my opinion, these don't do too much to help sell the house, anyway. What sells the house is an aggressive realtor and well-written MLS listing, both of which we'll demand.  I'm a firm believer in paying a real estate agent above-market rates (i.e., sign with the 7 or even 8% agent above the discounted ones). Which one is more motivated to sell your house, the one making $7,000, or the one making $10,000?

 

In exchange for my aforementioned real estate peccadilloes, I've decided to build an ultra-kick-ass virtual tour web site, to which the agent can link our various listings. (Well, maybe not "ultra" kick-ass, but definitely kick-ass.) I'll post that link here in the coming months so you can walk around my house.  Should be fun if you're also a little nebby.

My 80-Year-Old Lunch

 

Had a weird lunch today... The office was dullsville, so I moseyed over to Eat 'n' Park for the lunch buffet, stopping for a USA Today. I figured I'd just casually sit there and kill an hour. 

 

In line, an ancient man approached me and said, "We should buy stock in this place" (meaning, "wow, it's really busy"). Though he was simply making casual conversation, I got the distinct feeling that he was one of those continuously mumbling, half-crazed geriatrics (the target demographic of Eat 'n' Park, btw). I smiled, nodded politely, attempting to stave off a full-on conversation.  When I reached the hostess station, I learned there were no tables or booths available. But as I turned to leave, she added, "--unless you'd like to sit at the counter?"

 

Sounded okay... So, I took my paper to the counter and sat down.  Two seconds later, the old man followed me into the dining room and plunked down directly next to me, remarking in his gravelly voice that "great minds think alike."  (In fairness, there really wasn't room enough for him to leave a buffer seat.)  He was a portly old man, which served to nudge our proximity into the figurative "orange warning zone" of my own personal space preference. Like it or not, we were eating lunch together.

 

I hit the salad bar, leaving my USA Today on my small slice of counter real estate. By the time I returned, he'd taken my newspaper and had begun leafing through it!  Here we go, I thought, as the incessant jabbering began. The only thing worse than lunch with an insane person is lunch with an insane person at a hot/cold buffet lunch counter.

 

But then something quite unexpected happened; he wasn't jabbering at all. In fact, he started to make a lot of sense, letting loose with one insight after another about the economy and stock market. Turns out he'd worked as a stock broker half a century ago. He asked if I'd ever heard of Jesse Livermore. When I said no, he spoke nonstop for perhaps a full hour, interspersing the details of Livermore's life with observations about the stock market, human psychology, and the business of trading.

 

Livermore, said my old not-insane co-diner, made $100 million over those fateful few market-crash days in October 1929 as so many others leaped to their deaths. He'd alone seen the early signs and took enormous short positions.  Here's a quote from Livermore, turned up from a Google search:

The speculator's deadly enemies are: Ignorance, greed, fear and hope.  All the statue books in the world and all the rule books on all the Exchanges of the earth cannot eliminate these from the human animal. ~Jessa Livermore (writing as Edwin Lefevre)

That's pretty much what the old man and I spoke about for an hour and a half.  One hell of a perceptive man, that Livermore. OTOH, his life ended tragically. He committed suicide at age 63.

 

I still think 99% of the Eat 'n' Park blue rinse set are clinically insane. But, it was refreshing to meet and learn from an old pro.

The Plan (Brief Version)

Been away for a while coding the next multi-bajillion-dollar web brand.  My mind's pretty preoccupied with that still. But here's an interesting update -- the Hillman "Plan."  This should all begin sometime in June and end... well, whenever we run out of cash or settle somewhere. It's tough to say. But, here's the basic plan (simplified just a skosh):

 

Step 1:  Sell the Family Home

(House shown is not the Hillman house. Realtor shown is not the Hillman realtor. Wife shown is not the Hillman wife.)  Bought it in 1998 for $96,000. Refinished all 4 levels, top to bottom, floor to ceiling in every room, added a library, added family room, storage areas, added a huge bathroom with jet tub, huge sauna, enormous tiled shower, yoga room, and built-ins everywhere... Still owe $75K or so, I guess. But, I'm hoping the house is worth upwards of $150k (+/-???) now???  That would give us $75k to screw around with. (It's a down market, I know... but that sauna really is cool. I think it's going to make it sell quick!)

 

Step 2:  Quit My Job

Yes, they'll be shocked, as they've had me golden-handcuffed for way too long. But, hey, maybe they'll retain me on a contract basis. Who knows? (It's happened to me before.) I'll at least offer that much... I see no reason I couldn't do most of my job remotely, actually.

 

Step 3:  Purge

Well, okay, we aren't purging "everything." There are some things we've amassed over the years that are just too cool to part with. That antique bedroom set we got off ebay, for example. Had it shipped over from friggin FRANCE!  (Came from some chateau. I should really post pics sometime...) Oh, and my piano. God knows it took 8 years to pay off. And my books & crap... Couldn't part with those. We're going to get one of those PODS things & cram it full of our precious memories ("how they linger"). As my sister will attest, this purging step is going to be painful. (If I even get a dollar for every article of crap in the house, I'll have another $75,000.)

 

Step 4:  Purchase R.V.

I've been looking on eBay. You can get a cheap-o model for $10k or so. Up it to $15k, and you can get a decent one (though you have to wait for a good deal).  On the downside, I know absolutely NOTHING about RVs.  I do know I want a GAS (not diesel) model, at least 30+ feet long.  I wonder if I need a special drivers license?

 

Step 5:  Kiss Pittsburgh Goodbye

That's an actual picture of Pittsburgh (well, okay, it's from the heyday of the steel industry). But, you may be surprised to learn that Pittsburgh still ranks #1 in terms of air pollution. Just 5 days ago, it was announced that we've surpassed L.A. as the worst air quality in the nation. I do love the town -- stayed here longer than I've ever stayed anywhere else. Just can't breathe here... That and it's too cloudy/rainy. I've blathered on about this before...

 

Step 6:  Cruise Around the Country, Seeing Sights

Route shown is not the actual route. We haven't exactly planned that part yet.  There are a few things I absolutely MUST see, though. Those include Devils Tower in Wyoming, Hearst's "La Cuesta Encantada" in California, and Russell, Kansas (birthplace of Bob Dole). (Kidding on that last one.  If you notice my little fake map, above, it does NOT include traveling through Kansas. My sister & I drove across Kansas once together at like 48 mph. It took 6 weeks.)  Seriously, though, if you could drive across the USA in a Winnebago, what would appear on your "must see" destination list?  I'm curious & if it's something that resonates with my family, maybe we'll go!  (Should be some interesting blogging along the way, too!)

 

Step 7:  Arrive at Our Destination, Northern California

More sunshine, cleaner air... What more could you ask?  Sure, the cost of living will be higher. But, there's more money out there, so it all evens out I suppose.  We're thinking Sacramento or the Napa area or the San Jose area. Just depends on where I find a job, really.

 

I'm leaving out about 40 interim steps & details, but that's it in a nutshell.

Back Next Week...

 

Back next week... gotta focus on my web development project.  Today was a good day, though -- got Paypal's Instant Payment Notification successfully integrated with my back end. (That sounded a little dirty, didn't it?) It was a bit of a hassle, but finally worked. Ever wonder what happens when you buy, say, access to a web site (via Paypal)?  Here's how it goes (your perspective):

 

1. You sign up at the web site

2. You click on a link to Paypal

3. You make the payment

4. You return & get access to the site.

 

Here's how it works from the web site's perspective:

 

1. Person signs up

2. You send them to Paypal to pay (and they do, hopefully)

3. Paypal sends you a bunch of variables indicating a transaction has taken place

4. That data is accepted by a script/program that you custom write in the language of your choice

5. The script then sends it all back to Paypal along with some more stuff

6. Paypal then sends your server a final yes or no

7. Your program writes the user's data into your database

8. Your server tells Paypal that everything's cool

9. By the time the user finds his/her way back to your site (in a couple seconds), he or she has full, realtime access & you have cash in your paypal account.

 

By my count, there are about 600 ways to do all of that, which means it's probably tough for Paypal to make the experience very user-friendly -- even for programmers. But, after 3 days of tweaking, everything seems to work well enough. Okay, I gotta get back to the grind...