Doc Hollywood

In the 1991 movie, Michael J. Fox plays a plastic surgeon, who gets stuck in a small town, and ditches Hollywood for a slice of rural America. It was filmed in Micanopy, FL, which is also home to one of the foremost experts of antiquities in the world, who shared with me some of his treasures this weekend. Fantastic stuff.

What's interesting about small towns, is that Hollywood glamorizes them, as if only in these places will you find "realness."

And what's also interesting, if you spend the 4th on any of these small towns, you'll always seem to find a local band or singer, that would make "American Idol" proud, as they look for a way out. The next Taylor Swift, or for those whose taste in plastic surgeon movies gravitates to "Breast Men," the next Kellie Pickler. But unlike LA, here in these small towns, they have the whole town pulling, and hoping for them, recording their songs when they sing at the local Jaycee or Kiwanis sponsored events, and adopting them as their own. And that's the charm that's real. And that's also why American Idol is so misunderstood by so many people who don't understand it's popularity. They just haven't visited a small town! And a lot of people want to get out!

Now let's compare this with Goldman Sachs. Do they even pretend they have any small town values?

And if they were on "American Idol" would anyone really show up for the parade that wasn't "paid?"

Now everyone knows the lore of the secret recipe from Coca-Cola or KFC, but an equally guarded recipe also exists at Goldman. Their secret sauce, however, comes from Treasury, the Federal Reserve and our Government, and carried on the back of the small town taxpayer.

So it was rather amusing, that we found today that the Russian import, Serge Aleynikov, who used to work with Goldman Sachs, and danced on the side, had switched sides.

And had taken a shot at Goldman's secret sauce! And there was the FBI, moving mountains to protect Goldman's "secrets!"



But doesn't anyone find it somewhat amusing that the BSDs at Goldman, got stung by the gentleman that dances to "You light up my life" sung by Pat Boone's daughter Debbie?

The single that spent the most time at No. #1 in the 70's, that never made it to Goldman's elevator?

Back then Goldman wasn't listening to Debbie, because they were spending all their small town powder, coming up with their 14 "business principles."

Now I just had a great 4th of July weekend, so I won't be able to handle much of Goldman's pretended sincerity, so I'll just leave you with three of their principles before it makes me gag:

1) Our clients' interests always come first. Our experience shows that if we serve our clients well, our own success will follow.

12) We regularly receive confidential information as part of our normal client relationships. To breach a confidence or to use confidential information improperly or carelessly would be unthinkable.

14) Integrity and honesty are at the heart of our business. We expect our people to maintain high ethical standards in everything they do, both in their work for the firm and in their personal lives.

When is a surgeon going to take a scalpel to these?

And if I had a pick a "movie" surgeon to operate on Goldman, you probably could guess whom I would choose.

I know Rush would.

And it wouldn't be the ones in "Breast Men!"