Comeback Kid
At 74, T. Boone Pickens might be the hottest money manager in America. In a little over two years, he’s turned $4.4 million into $1 billion.
To anyone familiar with the boom-and-bust history of T. Boone Pickens, the recent successes of the legendary former oilman and corporate raider will come only as a mild surprise. Those more awestruck should read Pickens’ 1987 autobiography, Boone, and understand that cold weather is good news to a man who’s bullish on natural gas.
When I visited with Pickens in his Preston Center office in early 2001, he seemed expansive. His BP Capital Energy Fund had just finished an amazing year, beginning with $4.4 million in equity capital and finishing with $244 million. Five years earlier, he had been ousted from Mesa Petroleum, his life’s work; he was going through a messy second divorce; and he was suffering from clinical depression. All that was behind him. His BP Capital, funded in 1997 with $37 million, had brought him vindication.
Pickens is a natural plunger, but when I went to see him later in the year, he seemed to have shrunk physically. Gas prices had dropped. His shoulders slumped and his posture stooped. I assumed he had given back a lot of his gain. As a result of what he called “demand destruction” (a function of the weather and the economy), Pickens had grown cautious on natural gas in the near term and had gone short. Pickens is a congenital bull on natural gas, so this was a surprise. It was the right move. 2001 was a bit of a comedown. BP Capital finished the year up 267 percent, before a 20 percent reallocation to Pickens.
2002 was a difficult year for BP Capital. I had lunch with Pickens in early September, and he said the fund was “down a little.” Fifty-two percent is a “little” to Pickens. But he was bullish once again on natural gas and urged me to come back in a month, when he expected to be proven right. I did come back six weeks later, with a friend who was trying to raise money for Texans for Lawsuit Reform. We really didn’t discuss the fund, which Pickens allowed was still down a little. Since things were slow, Pickens said he would let me know at the end of the year if he could contribute. In late December, Pickens called back and said he had ended up with a decent year after all and that he thought he could help. The fund was up 51 percent before a 20 percent profit reallocation to Pickens.
Then came 2003. The performance of the fund through the last week of February is even more stunning. BP Capital began the year with $105 under management. As a harsh winter increased demand for natural gas, prices shot upward. At its peak, on February 25, the fund had a market value of $557 million.
Of the $4.4 million in beginning equity in 2000, BP Capital has returned a total of $420 million in cash to its partners. Thus, in a little over two years, $4.4 million turned into nearly $1 billion.
I asked Pickens what he was doing with his money outside the fund. Did he have a bond and stock portfolio? “No,” he said. “One thing is, I don’t have any debt anymore. I’m out of debt? Right?” he asked one of his associates. “I buy land and water rights. If a stock deal comes along that I like, I play.”
Earlier in the year, in an attempt to repeat the good old days, Pickens took a run at two small oil companies that he considered under-managed, Penn Virginia and Vintage Petroleum—all without success. “They had never heard of me,” he says. “I’m 74 and what they did hear was all bad, that I used to be a corporate raider. So they ignored us. Securities laws have changed. We didn’t have enough money to make a cash offer. The game has changed. I’m having more fun with this other stuff anyway. Do you remember what I said in my book? I’m the luckiest man in the world.”
Stay tuned. —Shad Rowe
Photo by Brad Loper/Dallas Morning News
Local Cable Access Show Crosses Borders to Break a World Record
Since the Jack E. Jerr Show aired on Dallas Community TV in November 2001, co-producers Jack E. Jett and Chris Rentzel have filmed about 50 episodes. On it, Jett, a witty host and fan of the double entendre, interviews angry magicians, hearse collectors, and Belinda Carlisle, but the substance of the show pales in comparison to the style. For instance, Jett always wears Playtex gloves (his 80-year-old mother told him television is a dirty business). On April 11, The Jack E. Jett Show makes the big leap from hidden cable access find (it airs every Friday on AT&T cable system’s Channel 27) to Canada’s PrideVision, the world’s first gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender television network.
D Magazine: Should I call you Jack or Jack E.?
Jack E. Jett: Jack E.
D: What does the “E” stand for?
Jack E.: Jack E. comes from my favorite author: “Jacque” Susann, from Valley of the Dolls.
D: My middle initial is also “E,” but “Adam E.” doesn’t sound as catchy. Now, is that Jett as in “Joan” or Jett as in “Benny and the?”
Jack E.: Joan, who is my favorite singer.
D: Your show is on cable access, right?
Jack E.: Right.
D: [Pause] I didn’t have a follow-up for that.
Jack E.: The show’s on in New York, San Francisco, Houston, Los Angeles, and West Hollywood, and all of the San Fernando Valley.
D: I’m not kidding when I tell you I’ve seen about five minutes of one of your episodes, and I’m a big fan. So what kind of changes do you anticipate making to your show once it’s in Canada, eh?
Jack E.: Eh?? Well, Canada told us there was not enough gay content in our show. Now, my whole goal is to try to get it in the Guinness Book of World Records as “The Gayest Show on Earth.” —Adam E. McGill
THE NEW GOSSIP
Corn-Pone Porn
In his free time, Mark Stuertz, food critic for the Dallas Observer, likes to write about people having sex with spinach. And dwarfs. Stuertz’s short story Lunch—a tale of a spinach salad whose preparation involves an incontinent little person and a vixen who allows herself to be used as a mixing bowl—was included in Simon & Schuster’s The Best American Erotica 1997. The 2003 edition, the 10th in the series of popular anthologies, is just out. To mark the occasion, the editor named the best 100 stories of the past decade. Lunch made number 25 (and another Stuertz ditty,
about a cigar, hit 85). We’ll never eat spinach in a restaurant again.
The New Deal
Slow Roosevelt has signed a deal with Jesse James’ Monster Garage to showcase “Boys Lie, Girls Steal.” Confused yet? “Boys Lie” is the newest single from Slow Roosevelt, a local band whose rock stylings feature “electrifying, relentless guitars” and “precision pounding,” according to sources. Jesse James is a famed West Coast motorcycle designer who stars in Monster Garage, a Discovery Channel show in which ordinary vehicles undergo bizarre transformations—a 1990 Ford Mustang GT convertible turned into a 60-mph lawnmower, for example. Now you know.
Smoke and Mirrors
We’ve heard that a well-known local restaurateur (who shall remain nameless) has put into effect a devious plan to thwart the smoking ban. The responsibility of policing the ban falls to the Environmental Health Department, which is supposed to issue tickets to violating smokers. The aforementioned restaurateur has told about 100 of his friends to call periodically with bogus complaints. If the Health Department shows up, they’ll find only a smoldering butt left behind by “the guy who just walked out of here.”
BLAME CANADA
“I don’t want to sit here and bash Bush or people who voted for him.”
—Mavs point guard STEVE NASH, on why he wore a t-shirt to the All-Star media day that read “NO WAR. SHOOT FOR PEACE.”
THE LIST
Robert Townsend
Telea Stafford
Clauda Baker
Carla Leffert
Lynn Knox
Bill Ceverha
Philip Williamson
Sheryl Williams
Tony Altermann
Jess Hay
Lee Slaughter
Daniel Stuart
Sam Yanagisawa
Michelle Muslin
Patricia Becket
Robert Carrel
Frances Bruce
Maria Bandiera
Jim Carreker
Peter Denker
David Hickman
Fred Hegi
Patricia Gorman
Chelsea Gott
Michael Yonks
Levi Williams
Woman on Top
TRULEIGH FAIRCHILD expects to be teased when she comes stateside. The 25-year-old Dallas native spends part of the year in Jakarta, where she is known as a champion cock racer. “It may sound like an odd thing to do,” Fairchild says, “but it’s so natural after living in Jakarta. Bird racing in Jakarta is like thoroughbred racing in Kentucky.” Fairchild found herself living in the Indonesian capital when she was 13 because of her father’s job as an oilman. She later attended Columbia University and put herself through school with her moves on the catwalk. She graduated with a law degree at the age of 19. But Southeast Asia and its traditions called her back. She now divides her time between her 10-acre ranch and aviary in Jakarta and a Tudor in Highland Park. But her love for her birds is fulltime. “I have about 45 in my stable now,” she says. “They’re like my boyfriends. I always buy a new bird for my birthday.” On April 1, Fairchild’s latest addition will be a gold-spangled appenzeller spitzhauben that she’s already named Suratman. “And I love to eat chicken, too. But not my babies. I would never eat one of my own racing cocks.” —Kristie Ramirez
Photo by Thomas G. Caraway
The Unstoppable Dr. Phil McGraw
A mysterious lawsuit against the pop psychologist falls short of its mark.
When Dr. Phil McGraw left the nurturing bosom of Dallas last September and set out to make his fortune (even larger) with his very own television show in LA, there were those of us who wished him failure. There was the matter of his less-than-nuanced advice (Dr. Phil to bulimic woman: “Stop doing that!”). But, more important, the man never returned our calls. It drove us batty seeing just how little Dr. Phil needed us.
When the numbers for Dr. Phil came in, we were crestfallen. And then, as if to taunt us, he and his wife Robin paid $7.5 million in cash for a 12,000-square-foot manse in Beverly Hills.
Then came the lawsuit. On January 31, a local outfit called DDH Aviation sued Dr. Phil, claiming he owed $135,962 in corporate jet bills. In fact, the complaint called Dr. Phil a “prodigious consumer of private air transport services,” and the DDH’s attorney, Steve Sumner, suggested, “He should practice what he preaches.” It was all detailed on the Smoking Gun, a web site of some renown that publishes such juicy, celebrity-smirching documents.
Our spirits soared! Dr. Phil was a deadbeat! Of prodigal proportions, no less! We sat back and, being a monthly, waited for our swifter ink-stained brethren at the dailies to bring down Dr. Phil from behind. Then we’d move in and pick his carcass clean.
Alas, it appears the mustachioed one has escaped us yet again. DDH dropped its suit in late February. Sumner sent an oblique letter to Dr. Phil, calling the lawsuit a “simple misunderstanding among staff members.” (Sure, we know how that can happen.) As of press time, the only print outlets to mention the stillborn suit have been the New York Post and the Calgary Sun.
Now comment on the misunderstanding is hard to come by. When we called DDH and asked to speak to its president, Robert Holly, we were told he was no longer with the company (though his photo and bio still appear on the company’s web site). They would say nothing more. DDH’s attorney similarly had nothing to say, referring us instead to Dr. Phil, who, of course, is too busy to address the issue.
Dr. Phil, if you’re out there, watch your step. One day you’ll stumble. And we’ll be hungry and waiting. —T.R.
A Traveling Diner Turns Stomachs in Europe
Several years ago, local artist and UTD lecturer Greg Metz turned a 27-foot 1955 Silver Streak Airstream travel trailer into a work of art with a message. On one side of The Diner, grim and ghastly depictions of the meat industry give carnivorous viewers food for thought. The other side offers Metz’s rendition of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper, with Louise May Alcott, Paul McCartney, Ghandi, and other famous vegetarians seated at Jesus’ side. Now The Diner is on its European tour and generating a good bit of press. In Dublin, it got front-page coverage in the Irish Times when crowds scrambled to the trailer, thinking it was a mobile restaurant serving American-style hamburgers. After touring Europe, The Diner will return to the States for a similar traveling educational display.
KELLY CLARKSON WATCH
We watch her so you don’t have to!
This Month: A NEW MOVIE!
From Justin to Kelly hits theaters April 25. The feature film is a musical love story set on the beach. In the movie, Justin Guarini, the runner-up on American Idol, plays Justin, the guy from whom something is sent to Kelly, played by Kelly Clarkson. Here’s what the two recently told Good Morning America:
Justin, on the nature of a musical: “It’s, like, you don’t just sort of be, like, we’re in a conversation and all of a sudden it’s, like, you know, we don’t do that. There’s a really nice segue where we go into conversation, and all of a sudden just, like, you know, we start singing maybe like this, and then, you know, we go into it.”
Kelly, on the rumors about her: “My mom will call me and she’ll be like, ’Oh, I heard you were having babies and you cheated. And y’all, like, like, just all this stuff.’ And I’m, like, ohh, I got six kids, you know.”
Kelly, on recently buying a Corvette for a friend: “It’s funny to walk in, because it’s, like, okay, like, from a girl, like, who wrote hot checks her whole life. It’s real cool to walk in, be, like, ’Oh, I’m paying for it, cash. It’s okay. I got it.’”—Jennifer Chininis
