Burt Rubin: EZ Wider Man, High Flyer, Pen Pusher
Burt Rubin started out a metals trader, then invented EZ Wider Rolling Paper. He's had his ups and downs--and now he's having aches and pains.

BY MICHAEL GROSS
Interviewed in New York in winter, 1998-99


MG: When were you born?
BR: June 15th, 1946. I grew up in New Rochelle, New York, which is in Westchester County, a little north of New York. My father was in the dress business, a dress buyer. My mom was primarily a homemaker, and a bookkeeper. I had an older sister, 10, 11 years older. My brother is 7 years older. So although I grew up in family of three children, I was an only child in the sense that as soon as I was in school, my brother in other schools and--
MG: Was your dad a vet?
BR: No, he wasn't. He had some kind of problem with his eyes.
MG: Were you middle class?
BR: Suburban. We lived in an apartment. We had a home in Monroe, New York where during the summers, I went to summer camp. The experience of summer camp was very important to me. It allowed me to learn about sports and I've always excelled in sports.
MG: Did you go to a brand new elementary school-built for boomers?
BR: I went to Mayflower Elementary School. It was not geared for all the kids. By the time I got to junior high school, that response had started to develop into construction. So that year I remember, we were in split sessions because of the overload of baby boomers into the school system. I would start at 8 o'clock in the morning and go to school till 12:30, and then the next group would go in. The next year a new school had been built and everybody went on regular session again after that.
MG: Were you aware of politics? Of Eisenhower, Stevenson, and atomic bombs?
BR: Whistle while you work, Stevenson's a jerk, Eisenhower's got more power, whistle while you work. Eisenhower was a great general and a great president. Stevenson was more the intellectual, no one could understand him. I actually sent a letter to the postal department because they were looking for suggestions for stamps for the 50's and I suggested that they put the fallout shelter on one. And they sent me a letter back thanking me and saying how they had gotten some similar letters. I remember two types of school emergencies. There was the fire emergency drill and then there was the air raid shelter drill. During a nuclear attack everybody was supposed to go to the basement and get under a desk, which seems quite ludicrous now. I remember having dreams about those drills. And if you look around you can still see those yellow signs that point down to air raid shelters.
MG: Do you remember TV coming into your house?
BR: I think there was one in my house--a small screen in a big set, with this plastic mirror in front of it that would do increase the size of the picture. I watched a lot of TV, a great amount of my value system probably came from westerns--you know, Gunsmoke and Bonanza and that Steve McQueen show, Wanted Dead or Alive. I still smoke and I smoke Marlboro because you'd see the man on the horse.
MG: Any other important childhood memories?
BR: When I was like 13 or 14, I said to my mother that I wanted to go to a psychiatrist. And she says, why? And I said, Bobby's going to a psychiatrist and Johnny's going and Gary's going and I want to go to a psychiatrist. And she looked at me and said Burt, we can't afford psychological problems. So I continued to bite my nails till I was 22, but I'm OK. [laughs]
MG: The comes Kennedy.
BR: Kennedy--I was in high school. Kennedy represented the big dream and it probably had to do with going to the moon. Going to the moon seemed like a big deal.
MG: Were you part of a clique?
BR: No, I really started working early. At 15 I was working full time at Big Top, a toy store. I would work from 3 o'clock 'til 7 at night and then Saturdays and Sundays. There was a big drive for me have some change in my pocket. I didn't do student government. I played tennis and some basketball in high school.
MG: Any familiarity with drugs as a kid?
BR: I still remember this commercial, I think it was for Anacin, first they'd show somebody really sad with hammers hitting their head. They were bummed. And then they'd show you this big pill and then, next scene, you see the pill in their hand and they're eating the pill and then the next scene you see them smiling and gleeful and happy. Another company's slogan was Better Living Through Chemistry. I think that had a lot to do with what happened in the 60's and 70's.
MG: Were you into rock and roll?
BR: I was into dancing. I liked to dance. So it was, you know, the hip hop lindy type of thing.
MG: Not Elvis?
BR: No.
MG: James Dean?
BR: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I remember we went to the Copacabana on my high school prom to see The Temptations. I didn't get into folk music until I was in college. I went to NYU.
MG: Were you aware of the 1963 march on Washington for civil rights?
BR: You know, at that time I was trying to take care of myself. I was trying to get through college. And I was working full time. And when you're catering manager for the university and you're working Friday nights and Saturday nights--
MG: Would you not have gone to college unless you earned your own money?
BR: No, my parents were able to get me there the first year. After that they said, Burt, you're going to have to work. So I had to. I started working as a waiter and then they made me a bartender and then the Peter Principle, they made me a catering manager and I ran the catering there for a couple years. It gave me like 14 or 18 credits a semester free, it gave me all my food free, plus it paid me a $200 dollar a week salary. '64 through '68. That's when I started smoking marijuana. I lived at 180 Thompson Street around the Cafe a Go Go. Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention lived in my building. I saw Dylan around the corner, I'd go to concerts. You couldn't walk down Bleecker Street, without somebody brushing you and going, "Hash, pot or acid." That was the beginning--head shops were starting at that time.
MG: Do you remember smoking pot the first time?
BR: Actually, I was pretty much against it for a long time. My roommate had started. But they knew my feeling about it. And then eventually, one of my oldest friends, I was at his house and he was telling me how he enjoyed it and at a subsequent time I tried it. I guess they'd call it peer pressure, but it was the thing that people were doing at the time.
It was in my building. There were about 12 or 14 people there. I remember particularly because there was a knock on the door and a policeman was there. And everybody got a little uptight. And he said, "There's been a complaint that the music is too loud." And I remember my roommate Steve saying, "Oh that's okay, officer, we'll shut it right off." And the policeman said, "That's OK, just lower the music and have a good night." A whole cloud of smoke went into the hall. He smelled it, but it was not something to hassle college kids about at that time.
MG: Did you get into it?
BR: Yeah. Yeah. Smoked grass every day for a long, long, long, long, long, long, long·
MG: From that moment forward.
BR: Not every day from that moment but--and there'd be different times and different interruptions, but generally marijuana is my drug of choice as opposed to alcohol. Still is.
MG: Is it a secret?...
BR: Secret to who? No, no. My mother still doesn't think I smoke grass.
MG: Did you trip?
BR: Yes, I tried acid maybe 5, 6 times, 7 times, maybe more. I think the last time I did that was when I was 36.
MG: What about politics?
BR: I was too busy. The Muslims have a saying: praise Allah, but first tie your camel to the post. OK, praise Allah meaning be spiritual, follow religion, follow good things, follow art, follow all these things, OK, but first make a living and take care of yourself. Most of the kids that I knew who did that were brought up in a lot of luxury. You have to have time to do that. You can't--if you have to work 3 hours in the afternoon.
MG: Did you have a career plan?
BR: No, my--originally I went to law school. I graduate college in June of '68. I got a scholarship to the University of Miami. But I left law school 'cause I didn't feel that I wanted to be a lawyer. I got a new VW at the time, a '68 VW cause I was going to law school. I was at Woodstock. That was kind of funky. Driving up in a new VW, sleeping in cow manure overnight. We got there and it was pouring rain and sloppy and we parked the car and put a little tent that we had up in this cow pasture. There wasn't a lot of room. And people were dancing in the streams naked and running around and playing music and tie dyeing and--it was fabulous.
MG: Was it after Woodstock that you quit law school?
BR: Law school is a serious place. I decided that I didn't want to continue after my first year, I came back to New York. Had a variety of jobs. I worked for Shell Oil cause I had to make a living, in their computer data department. They put me in this cubby hole and said 'Here's so much work, you have 8 hours to do it.' And I would do it in an hour and a half--writing code for their computers. At that time computers were run by punch cards. And I would form them and put them in order and re-do them and I would finish my day's work in an hour and a half, hand it in and then say, "OK, can I do more work?" and they'd say, "No, that's all the work we have for you." I said "OK, can I read?" "No, you can't read." "Well, what should I do?" "Just do it more slowly." And I said, "I can't work for a big corporation; things move a little too slowly for me." So I started looking around, I went to a head-hunting firm and they hired me. Because I had a background in catering, I handled their hotel-motel-restaurant area.
MG: You're a young, good-looking guy in the city in 1969. Are you having fun yet?
BR: Yeah. I was. I was going on ski trips, doing a little climbing. I didn't have a lot of spare money at the time. I was not really liking that business. Then a friend got me an interview for the job that was the precursor to E-Z-Wider, which was trading specialty metals and ores around the world or training to, for a large corporation. And that's when I started to learn all about international trade and movement of goods around the world and all those things would help me eventually with E-Z-Wider. I stayed there for about 2, 3 years.

n e x t  (c) 2000 Michael Gross