Self-Esteem

Olivia & Preston and Frank & Brenda enjoyed an Escape room in Minneapolis last weekend, and managed to escape with 10 minutes still left. The day you graduate from high school is the last day you’ll be expected to be good at everything.
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Self-esteem is your description of your worth.
 
A recent national study suggests it declines when you start school, and continues to decline until you graduate from high school.  One of the least successful efforts to improve self-esteem was giving all students a reward regardless of their performance.  If you want honestly want to improve your self-esteem you need to take action, such as:
 learn something newexercisehelp someone with a tasktalk to someone you usually don’t talk to, even if they’re difficult visit a grandparent  
If you think about it, students are asked to compete on every ability throughout the day.  The day you graduated from high school, was the last day you’ll be expected to be good at everything.  After high school, no one will say, “Sure you’re a nice person, but how far can you throw a ball?”  or, “Sure you can weld, but do you know why George Washington crossed the Delaware?”
 
With that said, everything you learn will be useful at some point in your life, even if it doesn’t seem to apply anywhere in the moment.  I love different types of music.  I also like to visit modern art museums when I go to new cities, as often when I leave I have solutions to problems I’m dealing with.  Typically, I don’t know where the insight came from, but simply seeing new creative ideas started me looking at it differently.  Learning itself creates new neural pathways in your brain, so the more you learn, the more you are capable of learning. 
 
I will now share how a rich man ruined a teenage girl by giving her money rather than offering her an opportunity to improve her self-esteem. 
 
Victoria Lynn "Vicki" Morgan (August 9, 1952 – July 7, 1983)
Aspiring to be an actress, in 1968, 16-year-old Morgan ran away from home, finding work as an usher at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles. She soon married 47-year-old Earl Lamb. She was still a teenager when she met 54-year-old Alfred Bloomingdale, a married multi-millionaire from the famous department store family. Alfred was a sexually disturbed man with a ton of money that kept him out of trouble.  Vicki Morgan became Bloomingdale's mistress, and he would have her watch as he performed bondage, dominance, and sadomasochism on multiple sex workers. When Vicki was 18, Bloomingdale offered her husband, Ear Lamb, a large cash payment to end his marriage with Vicki. Vicki then entered a full relationship with Bloomingdale, who set her up in an apartment.  It’s important to note that Alfred was married, and his wife, Betsy, was a close friend of Nancy Reagan.  Alfred was a major backer of Ronald Reagan and was on his advisory board.  (I don’t blame the Reagans for any of Bloomingdale’s lunacy.  It was during an era when people knew very little about people close to them, and even if they did, Alfred is still responsible for his choices.)   
 
Alfred Bloomingdale basically ruined this young girl’s life.  He convinced Vicki Morgan to come with him to a hideout in the Hollywood hills to watch him play "the game" -- tying up naked prostitutes, flailing them with his belt while taking the teenager over his knee and spanking her vigorously.  This was the beginning of an off-and-on affair that lasted more than a decade. As part of her later palimony suit, Vicki would reported she weaned him from his destructive BDS&M activities by making him adjust to regular adultery. Vicki had her own relationships and biographies of her suggest she used sex as a sort of charge card to get what she wanted. She had brief relationships with Cary Grant, Morocco's King Hassad, high-flying entrepreneur Bernie Cornfeld, and a lesbian fling with an exiled Saudi princess. But the dominant factor was always Alfred Bloomingdale -- as his failing health and suspicious wife allowed. Alfred made it clear that he was her sugar daddy, and she was his servant.  Alfred bought her a sports car, paid her rent, and paid her $1800 a month.  His wife finally had her fill of the affair after Alfred purposely sat in plain sight with Vicki in his car outside of Betsy’s hair salon, while she was having her hair done, and had Vicki perform a sexual act on him. Vicki Morgan Alfred Bloomingdale Alfred Bloomingdale died in 1982, and that ended the money flow.  Vicki Morgan began a descent into abusing pills and paranoia.  She thought she was under surveillance and threatened to take down the government.  In chemical dependency treatment she met the man who would eventually kill her--Marvin Pancoast, a mentally ill gay man who was obsessed with Vicki’s stories about Alfred Bloomingdale.  (I only mention Pancoast’s sexual orientation to clarify this wasn’t a love affair.)  Marvin would later say, “Vicki was special.  You just couldn't get enough of her." Marvin moved in with her.  They both abused drugs--neither worked.  Marvin later would say her narcissism and shallowness drove him so crazy that he beat her to death with a baseball bat.
 
An attorney, Robert Steinberg, attempted to get a settlement from the Bloomingdales and made headlines by claiming he had gotten a hold of some "sex tapes" Vicki had left behind.  Robert was asked to produce them, but claimed they were stolen from his home the night before he was going to turn them in.  Steinberg was convicted of filing a false police report with regard to this.  Although there have been occasional conspiracy theories the government had her killed, it’s important to note that people who have investigated the case, and the killer, report Marvin beat her to death with a baseball bat in a drug induced state over money and because he felt she was ordering him around.  Marvin had also recently discovered he had AIDS.  Vicki’s attorney proceeded with the palimony suit on behalf of Vicki’s son Todd, who was born in 1969.  Vicki Morgan had a contract in which Bloomingdale promised to give her $240,000, but instead gave her $40,000.  The judge ruled the agreement unenforceable as it was for the illegal act of "sex for hire." In December 1984, the jury awarded her estate the remaining $200,000 (the equivalent of $471,000 today).     I reflect on the case with frustration that a man with almost unlimited resources, destroyed this young woman, when it would be so easy to help her.  This will be his legacy.  


Quotes from Mitch Hedberg:

I’m a heroine addict.  I need to be with a woman who saved somebody’s life.
 
My manager’s cool, but he gets concerned, he says, "Mitch, don't use liquor as a crutch." I can't use liquor as a crutch... because a crutch helps me walk.
 
Snake eyes. It's a gambling term. Or it's an animal term, too.
 
I was walking with a friend who said, “Mitch, I hear music.”
I told him, “There’s nothing special about you.  We all do.”
 
 
Thanks for listening,
 
Frank Pictures I took on my travels through rural Minnesota last week Lakes and Legends Taproom Frank & Brenda and Preston & Olivia enjoyed a great meal and a cold brew at The Local Irish Pub in Minneapolis Frank and Rosetta have gotten together the last couple Sundays to play some music. Frank speaking to the Books and Beverages book club in Hastings on Murder Book ​Shane and Rachael are expecting their first child.  I have included some pictures of Shane as a child as a prelude.