Eminentoes/The Springsteen-Boesky Connection

...yet, as he writes in "Nebraska": I can't say I'm sorry For the things that we done At least for a little while, We had us some fun...

...At first glance, a friendship between a gun-toting risk arbitrageur under investigation by the SEC and a certified working-class hero such as Springsteen seems a trifle bizarre...

...But he wouldn't even talk to you if you were from Rolling Stone...

...The first time I called, the receptionist said: "He won't talk to you...

...Yet even the most cursory analysis of Springsteen's impressive body of work makes it abundantly clear that The Boss repeatedly warned his fellow Rumsonite: For God's sake, John, get away from that scoundrel Boesky...

...The fun to which he was referring was almost certainly the joyful days the two would spend jet-skiing on the Navasink River in northern New Jersey: We'd go down to the river, and into the river we'd dive...

...It also seems likely that Springsteen was referring to Boesky, now confined in Lompoc Federal Prison in California, when he wrote: I wake up every morning to the work bell clang...

...And in a lyric that eerily foreshadows Mulheren's arrest by Rumson police, The Boss writes: Out in front of the Club Tip Top They slapped the cuffs on Johnny 99...

...After the incident with the guns, Springsteen visited the contrite Mulheren—who blamed all the unpleasantness on his failure to take lithium for manic depression—at a Princeton, New Jersey mental institution...

...At least that's the way it seemed to me the numerous times I called Springsteen's manager, Jon Landau, to find out if Mulheren had any of The Boss's money under management...

...EMINENTOES THE SPRINGSTEEN-BOESKY CONNECTION by Joe Queenan ne of the oddest bits of information to surface when risk arbitrageur John Mulheren was arrested last February by Rumson, New Jersey police for allegedly planning to kill his ex-pal and business associate Ivan Boesky was that Mulheren's circle of friends included Bruce Springsteen...

...Boesky's reaction to Mulheren's desperate act is immortalized in the verse: I'm caught in a crossfire That I don't understand...

...For the more one delves into the Springsteen-Mulheren connection, the more apparent it becomes that The Boss has been locked in an epic death struggle to save Mulheren's soul for years, an effort for which he deserves our respect, compassion, and even admiration...

...They certainly weren't meant that way...

...Me and the warden go swinging on the Charlotte country road gang...

...Joe Queenan is a writer for Barron's magazine...

...Apparently, Mulheren, who at one time was investing some $600 million for the likes of Boone Pickens, the Tisch Family, and the Belzbergs of Canada, would sometimes work out with The Boss at a Red Bank, New Jersey health club, and would also jet-ski with Bruce on the Navasink River in Rumson, where both men had huge mansions...

...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR NOVEMBER 1988 37...

...Mulheren's decision to avenge himself on Boesky, who seemingly had implicated him in the Wall Street insider trading scandal, is encapsulated nicely in "I Came for You," and again in "Badlands," where the Boss sings: Blow away the dreams that tear you apart Blow away the dreams that break your heart Blow away the lies that leave you nothing but lost and brokenhearted...

...Mulheren ignored that warning, so Springsteen issued another in "Badlands": You hear the voices telling you not to go They made their choices and they'll never know What it means to steal, to cheat, to lie .. . Springsteen clearly perceived the relationship between risk arbitrage,takeovers, stripping down assets, and unemployment, and attempted to explain the pertinent economic subtleties to Mulheren in "The River": I got a job working construction for the Johnstown Company But lately there ain't been much work on account of the economy...

...The eighth or ninth time I called, one of Landau's assistants snapped: "I've been doing this a long time and I find your questions really offensive...

...Foreman says these jobs are going, boys, And they ain't coming back To your hometown .. . As the unlikely pair grew closer, Springsteen began to experience pangs of conscience about his relationship with the arb...

...more recently, the now-sprung risk arbitrageur was spotted at Madison Square Garden when The Boss did his summer tour...

...All of which makes this last set of verses, chillingly depicting the perils of risk arbitrage, so eerily prescient: You can look but you better not touch boy You can look but you better not touch Mess around and you'll end up in dutch boy You can look but you better not, No, you better not, No, you better not touch...

...When Mulheren paid him no heed, Springsteen restated his case in "My Hometown": They're closing down the textile mill Across the railroad tracks...

...or example, in "It's Hard To Be a I: Saint in the City" Springsteen cautioned young Mulheren that his friendship with the older Boesky would come to no good: The devil appeared like Jesus through the steam in the street Showin' me a hand I knew even the cops couldn't beat I felt his hot breath on my neck as I dove into the heat It's so hard to be a saint when you're a boy...

...It is unclear whether Springsteen was counseling his friend to refuse to turn over certain documents to the SEC in "No Surrender," but he clearly anticipated Mulheren's decision to load up his Israeli assault rifle and bump off the yellowbelly, ratfink Boesky when he writes: Got in a little hometown jam, So they put a rifle in my hand Sent me to a foreign land To go and kill the yellow man...

...Due to his position as a friend of the downtrodden, a champion of working stiffs, Springsteen could never mention Mulheren by name: in a very real sense, the friendship of a rocker and a risk arbitrageur is the Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name...