Bob's Your Uncle
That’s his unique value – he’s an extraordinarily original player in a world full of people who sound like each other. He’s got a style that’s totally unique as far as I know. I don’t know anybody else who plays the guitar the way he does… I have a hard time recognizing any influences in his playing…even though I’ve been along for almost all of his musical development. I’ve been playing with him since he was 16 or so.
Jerry Garcia on Bob Weir
I attended a tamale party once - an afternoon affair that had been held in the same place, on the same date, for 67 years. A few hundred of us sat at picnic tables under giant trees as the sun sparkled the way it does in California. There was a local string band and we ate tamales and drank cans of beer.
The band took a break and my hosts, old school ranchers and real estateurs, were back in line, reloading on tamales. One of the string band’s guitar players joined me, straddling the bench and sitting sideways across from me.
“What a day”, he said, tilting his face towards the sky, closing his eyes against the warm sun.
We talked for a bit about the weather, then tamales. I asked how long he’d been with the band and he explained it wasn’t his band, he just joined in for a set. He said he was from the Bay Area. I asked him how he spent his time there.
“I’ve got a band”.
“Right on”, I responded as my hosts returned.
“Bob!” they said nearly in unison
He has a distinct appearance, one that could be picked out of any crowd, and a guitar style - as Jerry said - that’s totally unique. But the idea that it was Bob Weir sitting across the table was so preposterous and out of context that it never registered, even to a music nerd like me.
Bob #2
Property owners come in all stripes, but it’s unusual to meet a shopping center owner - an individual owner, as opposed to a partnership or corporation - that isn’t memorable. Any individual that has a few million dollars (or in some cases, tens or hundreds of millions) of their dough at risk in such a quirky asset means they’re rich and they appreciate quirky. These owners are a special breed and all stand out either in temperament, mannerism, or oddness.
One such gentleman - named Bob, but a different Bob - lived in what I called the “house of many gables”, a 12,000 square foot Tudor/Tuscan monstrosity, the type home you get if you tell your architect price is no object and your architect wears Pit Viper sunglasses.
One of Bob’s quirks was he only wore Hanes t-shirts, blue, with a pocket. He lived alone, except for an older guy who drove him around and ran errands (what would’ve been a footman were his castle not in suburbia), and a chain-smoking older woman that cleaned the house and made sandwiches while a cigarette hung from her lip.
The quirks didn’t end with his clothing or employees, as I learned on my first visit to Bob’s house. Instead of a common ding dong, when I pushed the doorbell button, a startling haunted house voice erupted, asking WHAT THE F*CK DO YOU WANT?
Bob, as a case in point, is an individual that owns shopping centers.
Bob #3
My early real estate gigs were as a shopping center property manager. It’s a peculiar vocation - being the whipping boy for both the tenants that indirectly paid my salary and the property owner that directly paid it.
Early in my property management days one of my customers, true to the quirkiness required of a shopping center owner, would (over)use the phrase “Bob’s your uncle”.
For example, a big retail chain called saying they would only renew their lease with a rent reduction, but when we didn’t blink and they ended up renewing anyway he said “see that - Bob’s your uncle”.
Or, in response to our landscaper increasing the monthly charge, he told me to tell them we were putting the contract out to bid. When the landscaper backpedaled on the price increase he said “see that - Bob’s your uncle”.
His name was also Bob, an altogether different Bob from the other two Bobs - and he wasn’t my uncle - so it was confusing at first, but with time, I came to realize it was just his cheeky and tedious way of saying as I expected.
At one of his properties, Bob had a long-term lease with a restaurant chain, and:
the restaurant chain had subleased to a drug store, and
the drug store had subleased to a video rental store, and
the video rental store had subleased back to Bob, and
Bob had subleased to an urgent care clinic.
Each sublease had a bit of nuance as to the rights and responsibilities of the parties, and each sub-lessor was clipping a bit of the economics. Bob - like the rest of the parties to the lease chain - avoided bills. Whenever a non-standard expense arose my job was to pin it on someone.
At one point the urgent care clinic wanted to make some improvements to the building and as part of the approval process the city required the installation of a backflow preventer (a device to prevent contaminants entering the water supply line from the irrigation system).
The urgent care lease required the sublandlord (Bob) to keep the building up to code. Bob wanted me to argue the lease also required Bob’s approval before any improvements were made, and Bob didn’t approve the improvements.
I argued Bob’s position and a few weeks later received a terse letter to Bob, in care of me, from the urgent care clinic saying they acknowledged he was withholding approval of their improvements, but that didn’t relieve Bob’s obligation to install the backflow preventer.
“Bullshit”, Bob said when I told him about the letter, “send it to the video store”.
I sent it, with a cover letter as to why our lease required the video store make the improvements. But I knew what would happen, as (I’m sure) did he.
A response arrived a few weeks later, addressed to Bob, in care of me. It included my letter (on behalf of Bob) to the video store, as an attachment to a letter from the video store to the drug store, in the drug store’s letter to Bob, in care of me.
I handed it to Bob, saying it looked like the backflow preventer was his expense after all.
See that Bob - Bob’s your uncle I thought.
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