Tips for Conquering NYC; Hacks and Their Hatchet Jobs; The Morons of the NJ Democratic Party; Hard Times Coming
1. Don't sleep with publicists. In the natural course of events, you'll be tempted to sleep with publicists. Not only are they extremely pretty, they're usually fairly accommodating as well. (Why, it's almost part of the job description!) However, in my experience it's always a mistake. The moment the relationship ends?and all relationships with publicists end badly?you'll be permanently removed from their firm's invitation list. Whether they break up with you or you break up with them, they're not going to want to see you at the next launch of their client's flagship store on Madison Ave.
2. How to get past the clipboard Nazis. If, like me, you're unable to resist temptation, you won't be invited to any of the parties you want to go to. So how do you get past the platoon of clipboard Nazis guarding the entrance? One method I've found to be about 50 percent effective is to walk straight to the front of the queue, turn round so your back's facing the bouncers, point to whoever you're with and say, "I'm with this person, that person and that person," then point to some complete stranger and grandly announce, "but I'm not with that person." The clipboard Nazis are so used to people who are on the guest list behaving in this obnoxious manner, they'll often let you and your friends in without a murmur.
3. How to avoid talking to your boss. Seeing your boss at a party is like that moment when your parents arrived to pick you up from the school disco: it's a major buzz kill. To add to your miseries, they'll probably buttonhole you the moment they set eyes on you. Before you know it, they'll have invited you to join them for dinner and for the rest of the night you'll have to sit there while they get loaded and tell you about the problems they're having communicating with their son. The following day, when you see them in the office, they'll avoid making eye contact with you and you'll have to kiss that promotion goodbye. So the moment you see your boss, throw your arms up and exclaim: "Oh my God! If I'm here, you know it's time to leave!" To preserve their reputation as a discerning social operator, they'll have to head straight for the nearest exit.
4. What to do if you can't remember whether you've met someone before. The last thing you want to do is say, "Nice to meet you," only to have them reply frostily, "We've met before, actually." The best thing to say, irrespective of who they are, is: "Of course, the famous ______ ______." If you've been introduced before, they'll think that's what you mean by "famous," whereas if you haven't they'll think that their reputation has preceded them. Either way, they'll be pleased. (Incidentally, I picked this up from George Plimpton who, for years, would always follow up an introduction to me by exclaiming, "Of course, the famous Toby Young," clearly having no idea who I was.)
5. One-night stands. The key to snagging a one-night stand is to persuade the woman that you're shaggable but not datable. The moment she thinks you're boyfriend material, you're not going to get laid until at least three dates down the line. So tell them you're a recovering cocaine addict or in the throes of a rough divorce. Better yet, explain that you're from out of town and it's your last night in New York. If she thinks she's never going to see you again, she'll hop right into bed with you.
6. The morning after. You should make sure it's her bed you hop into, not yours. As any practiced swordsman knows, you always go back to her place. That way, when you wake up in the morning and realize you're in bed with a complete moose, you can get the hell out of there.
7. How to stay looking fresh, night after night. After all this carousing, you'll probably end up looking a complete wreck. Yet you don't want to miss that fabulous new restaurant opening tonight. What to do? Well, the most effective way to get rid of those tell-tale bags under the eyes is Preparation H. A dab of this miracle cream will do more than any amount of exercise and healthy living to rejuvenate a tired-looking face. I was personally let in on this secret by a well-known model, but I'm not going to tell you her name because, if I did, she'd be able to point out that, while she may have passed on this trade secret, she didn't actually sleep with me.
That's my final tip: If you're going to lie and claim you've slept with a ton of models, never name them. Just tap your nose and say, "Two words: Victoria's Secret. I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you."
These 55 words have been considered the most eloquent expression of freedom and human rights in all of written history, a political poetry, a mission statement of the United States, an intellectual basis for racial equality, the reason that millions have continued to risk their lives to reach our shores?but to the Democrats they are an anathema. Or, perhaps, to borrow another Democrat's favorite phrase, they are "too risky." To appease them and to ensure the success of the measure, the drafters even amended their bill to include a provision that would require schools to teach students about the meaning of the Declaration, its 18th-century context, its relationship to the American Revolution, to the abolition of slavery, women's suffrage, the civil rights movement and to other relevant developments in American history. And, as with the Pledge of Allegiance, the pupils whose parents find it morally repugnant may ask to be exempt from reciting it.
Still, no dice. As far as the state Democratic Party is concerned, the Declaration of Independence is offensive, exclusionary, discriminatory, anti-woman, anti-black and anti-minorities.
Admittedly, one Democratic assemblyman who voted against it might have been persuaded to change his mind had he been permitted to rewrite the thing a bit and allowed to insert the phrase "and women" each time the Declaration mentioned "men." For, as this modern-day Hammurabi explained, "The problem with the Declaration of Independence would be saying something that, even in speaking it, would be discriminatory... For us to make little girls recite 'All men are created equal,' it doesn't help them. It does a disservice to them."
The law, if passed, would be applicable to students in grades 3-12, many of whom might prefer to be referred to as young women and one fears that the assemblyman was somewhat patronizing, if not downright perverse, in calling all gals "little girls." But that's the trouble with identity politic: you never know whose tender feelings you are going to bruise next.
Over in the Senate, a resident Solon also publicly deplored the fact that the Declaration failed to include "and women," but felt that it was even more "exclusionary" than his colleagues thought, because Thomas Jefferson had been a wealthy Southerner who owned slaves. This senator was sure that blacks would find it "offensive" to have to repeat Jefferson's words that "all men are created equal."
The measure passed the New Jersey Senate despite?now here is a concept to boggle the mind?a principled Democratic opposition, even though, according to another legislator, "philosophically, the bill was way out of order in terms of its inconsiderate approach to African-Americans and minorities." It has been stalled in the Assembly and may be put for a vote again this November, provided all the Republicans bother to show up. For its part, the state education industry is solidly against hearing the Declaration of Independence recited in public schools. Education, in case you forgot, is a local matter.
The Democrat and teachers' unions daily, The New York Times, has also weighed in and dismissed the Declaration as important as the Poor Richard's Almanac, sneering that "if measure is approved, students will have to recite from Franklin, who mused in the Poor Richard's Almanac: Necessity never made a good bargain. Here comes the orator! With his flood of words and his drop of reason. A word to the wise is enough, and many won't fill a bushel." Whatever. It must be a drag not be able to decree that history starts with your own enlightened self. Whether they actually believe that America's intellectual foundation is a sham, the Garden State Democratic Party cannot let the words of the Declaration speak for themselves because they make it clear that redressing historical wrongs through state-sponsored discrimination is un-American, and because they are a reminder that human rights are not a fad the Democrats have picked up at some international conference on multiculturalism and then graciously conferred on the lucky few back home.
This is why it's necessary to discredit the man who wrote the Declaration and those who signed it. The Founding Fathers may have risked their necks in doing so, but what are their wretched lives or outdated ideas compared to the lofty sentiments of diversity and identity politics?
That said, what if Cramer's bullshit is true? Does it change the fact that under DiMaggio the Yankees won more World Championships than even under Babe Ruth? Did the 56-game hitting streak not take place? Was his flawless fielding a mirage? Of course not. Debunking a hero after his death is as easy to do as lying is to the Clintons. But it ain't necessarily so. Cramer uses the omniscient trick to make us feel he was there. But he wasn't, not even close. More than 500 pages full of "facts" might impress those who believe Elvis lives, but yours truly has been around for too long and knows how the hack game is played to believe any of it. Richard Ben Cramer should join forces with Kitty Kelley and co-author a book on Ronald Reagan's 35-year affair with Richard Nixon, a guaranteed bestseller.
Needless to say, because of the encroaching proletarian brutalism that is nowadays all encompassing, the low blow takes precedence over the bon mot. Anthony Summers, a man whose flatulent pomposity is matched only by his mendacity, invents the "fact" that J. Edgar Hoover dressed like a woman and attended homosexual orgies. He then writes a book on Nixon inventing the "fact" that the late president beat his wife. All "facts" are based on hearsay repeated by political opponents, who are also conveniently dead. If this is history, I am Monica Lewinsky. Baron Munchausen must be turning over in his grave. People like Summers and Cramer and Kelley make him really look small-time.
Mind you, it is not only hatchet-job artists who get it wrong. Take a recent cover story in Forbes, the preeminent financial monthly and one?along with Worth?that I trust absolutely. It dealt with Michel David-Weill, chairman and chief executive of Lazard LLC, one of the world's richest private empires. The story was written by respected professionals Robert Lenzner and Michael Maiello. Neither writer went out of his way to smear or gather dirt on Michel David-Weill, but the man who emerged from the story was certainly not the man with whom I have many friends in common and have known (however slightly) since we were both young men.
In describing the "arrogance" of David-Weill, the writers quote unnamed sources who have the Lazard chairman pointing at partners and telling them, "I don't need you. I don't need you. I don't need you?I don't need you." In another incident, "David-Weill drew on a big cigar and blew smoke in the faces of his visitors for half an hour..."
Although I do not understand finance, and feel like a Martian where hostile takeovers and such are concerned, I do know one thing. Michel David-Weill is a gentleman of the old school, a sophisticated bon vivant with a great eye for art and a propensity for living well, and would no more act in the manner described than I would have a quickie with Hillary Clinton. What people do not understand nowadays is that manners maketh man, and men like David-Weill have the kind of manners that rule out such boorish behavior.
My father once asked me if I knew anyone at Lazard's, because he was contemplating a business in Turkey. The mother of my children, who happened to be a childhood friend of Michel's sister-in-law, rang him and asked for an appointment. I arrived the next day, was ushered in the plushest office this side of Hollywood (but in exquisite taste) and was offered a cigar from the chairman. He heard me out in polite silence and immediately brought in a Turkish expert for a final opinion. He could not have been more gracious.
The last time I ran into him was last May, on the Concorde to Paris. He stood aside so a friend and I could be taken care of first. Noblesse oblige, as they say, and no one can convince me that a person like Michel David-Weill, a patrician banker, could possibly act like a Hollywood barbarian.
Ironically, the plebeian Steven Rattner, who tussled with Michel and quit Lazard's last February, and a man I had the bad luck to sit next to once, I find a despicable and arrogant social climber and someone who does not fit the Lazard image. Rattner is brash and vulgar. David-Weill is soft-spoken and a gent. I'll take the latter any day. As I will take William von Mueffling, another born gentleman, the Lazard fund manager who has turned in the most phenomenal of performances in a very tricky year.
Moral of the story? DiMaggio was born poor but acted like a gentleman all his life; David-Weill was born rich and acted like a gent throughout. They will be remembered long after the hatchet jobs written about them are out of print.
With investors no longer pouring their money into Wall Street, the huge U.S. trade deficit suddenly becomes unsustainable. The current account deficit for this year is projected to be $425 billion, or around 4.5 percent of GDP. The United States has been getting away with numbers of this magnitude for years without having to devalue the dollar only because the deficit could be financed by the ceaseless flow of cash into Wall Street. Once stock prices tumble, investors will look elsewhere for steady rates of return.
In which case, the dollar will start to slide. Already Saddam Hussein has announced that he wants nothing further to do with the dollar. He insists Iraq be paid in euros for its oil exports. A falling dollar will encourage others to take Saddam's lead. The Fed will be in a tricky position. It could allow the dollar to slide. This would lead to inflation as the prices of imports surge. Or it could raise interest rates and thereby deepen the recession.
Given the staggering size of America's current consumer debt, the consequences of a deep recession for millions of American families will be dire. Meanwhile, all the cheerful projections of a U.S. government budget surplus lasting forever will soon be an embarrassing recollection. Much of this expectation was based on government continuing to collect huge taxes on capital gains. In no time, budget deficits will be back. After all the brave campaign talk of balancing the books, the new president is unlikely to allow massive government deficits to accumulate. He will respond either by raising taxes or by cutting government expenditure or by a combination of both. Either way, the recession will only get worse.
The future is especially perilous today given that welfare has now effectively been abolished. The political establishment has been congratulating itself for four years on a job supposedly well done. But it was easy enough to shove people off the welfare rolls when unemployment is very low. Once the recession hits, it will be the least skilled who will be laid off first. What will happen to them?
Even within this New Economy life was never that rosy. Income disparities between the very rich and everyone else have been growing at a furious pace for years. From 1995 to 1997 the average after-tax income of the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans increased by $121,000, or 31 percent. By contrast, the average after-tax income of the bottom 90 percent of Americans increased by only 3.4 percent. Average after-tax income rose nine times faster for those at the top than for everyone else. In 1999, 11.8 percent of Americans were living in poverty. This figure showed a slight improvement on 1998, but still worse than the number in 1979. In 1999 the number of people without health insurance was 42.6 million?around 15.5 percent of the population.
These less-than-stellar figures are for times that, allegedly, are the best there have ever been. What will the figures look like when times get rough? During this election, Ralph Nader was the only candidate who ridiculed the pretensions of the New Economy. He mocked the meaningless statistics about booming stock markets and soaring profits that our corporate-owned hacks endlessly tout. What on earth is that deity demanding of worship?the ever-growing GDP? As Nader correctly explained, "If you have a lot of street crime or a lot of pollution, [dealing with those] generates a lot of economic activity, profits, jobs, and sales. But that's not something we really want an economy to spend its time doing? We don't measure whether an economy is developing. We just measure whether companies are selling more, whether inventories are up or down, not whether the health, safety and economic well-being of people are being advanced."
Nader has now positioned himself as a leader in waiting, someone who will give voice to the coming frustration and bitterness. Moreover, he is a unique figure in America capable of reaching out to left and right. This is why Nader's refusal to engage in identity politics will prove to be a very shrewd decision. It infuriated the left that he concerned himself with real issues like the declining quality of people's lives, rather than parochial concerns like gun control, abortion and gay marriage. Identity politics destroyed the left. Ralph Nader now has the opportunity to fashion a new political alignment.