Somewhere in the New York offices of the company formerly known as Lehman Brothers, there is a conference room in dire need of some plaster. This is likely not a priority for the top Lehman brass or the government or Barclay's or whoever is now in charge of this sort of thing, but the plaster would be used to fill the numerous giant holes created when a prized six foot long scale model of a sailboat was ripped out of a wall a few days after said wall's owner declared bankruptcy.
The sailboat (along with a set of smaller replicas that had been collected with great care and appreciation by a senior member of the firm) was not the only memento of better times suddenly cast into pathetic relief by the crumbling firm and fortunes around it. Bottles of expensive wine that once served as celebratory reminders of profitable deals and rainmaker relationships were now being considered and, with shrugs, popped open and poured into styrofoam cups pilfered from the hallway kitchenettes. Little Nerf footballs emblazoned with companies taken public or merged were tossed around, mini distractions flying to and fro. Suit jackets and ties, leather notebooks, and shiny pens were dumped into boxes and tote bags and lugged outside to find themselves immortalized by curious cameras and roving reporters.
"I have no idea if I still have a job," remarks Steve, who has been at Lehman for the entirety of his career, having opted to stick around even as his friends sought greener pastures at what those in the know refer to as small PE shops. (He was out at dinner with some of these friends the night his firm declared bankruptcy. Upon hearing the news, they doubled their drink orders.) "But I'm pretty sure I'm going to be unemployed in a few weeks." He says this in a manner that is almost cheerful and not unlike the tone one takes after a particularly brutal blind date or final exam.
I've heard that tone a lot lately. Which makes sense, because: when your company is pulled out from under you like that, when it vaporizes into the air, when you sit at your desk and stare at CNBC as the stock of your respected employer ticks down, down, down (it's at one times book value right now. It can't go any lower! you think, and then you watch it tick right on through) how else can you respond? Because, really, it's not you, it's the econo-me.
Absurdities abound, and they provide relief. Patrick, of the late Bear Stearns, finds grim humor in the fact that his former company turned out to be a trendsetter: they collapsed before it was cool to do so. And in hindsight, he was lucky: paid double for several months - to entice him to stick around playing the violin while the ship went down - he's now six weeks into three months of a severance deal. It was a gentle landing. First, though, he had to endure scenarios straight out of an episode of The Office and ripped from the Ben Affleck interview scene in Good Will Hunting.
"The way it worked was, if JP Morgan offered a Bear employee a job and they turned it down, they'd forfeit all severance," Patrick recalls. "But they could offer you any job. So in some ways, you actually wanted to get laid off so you could collect the package."
Thus began a delicate dance; employees were asked to rate on a scale of 1 to 3 how strongly they wanted to work for JP Morgan. Patrick, hedging his bets, marked down a 2 and then embarked on an ambitious campaign to undersell himself. (His boss was complicit, doing his part to call buddies at the acquiring bank and declare Patrick not the right fit for their departments.)
"I wouldn't even bring a resume in to some of the interviews," Patrick recalls with a wry-but-resigned smile. "It was like when that dude meets with the consultants in Office Space. I might as well have put my feet up on the desk."
There are a lot of feet up on a lot of desks these days. Employees are told to keep reporting to work, but with assets frozen, clients fleeing, and credit crunched, what is there to do? Computer screens flicker with resumes and job search sites, but it only takes a dash of mental math to realize that this is something of a sordid exercise in supply and demand. For now, you see, these waters we navigate are raging and murky. And they'll swallow even the most well-crafted model sailboats right up.
Here we are, at KatieBakes'. Fitting to her name, we've attended to that first. FEK can't work his computer, Andrew is wearing a 1992 debate shirt, and the new commenting system sucks ass. Fortunately there's some GM staff here to yell at about. Updates once we figure out the mechanics of commenting, and you know, the debate starts.
8:44: For invocation of 'UrbanDaddy' as signifier for lameness on the Internet. 8:53: Rex "Did someone delete my thread" 8:56: Eli: We came here just to comment on Gawker? 8:58: You know what? There isn't a whole lot to blog about at a debate. 9:44: First photo hits the internet (see above -- thanks Nick). Is reblogged five times already.
Apparently we'll be liveblogging the debate over at Gawker tonight with others who are exponentially - and thankfully - more qualified. Not really sure how it's gonna work but we've stocked up on supplies.
We interviewed Jewish celebrities ranging from Matisyahu to Ed Koch, plus editors at New York Magazine, Huffington Post, Radar, Esquire, and Gawker Media — in addition to up-and-coming comedians, stars, and more!
Laugh out loud at the funny things they have to share about the High Holidays, from blowing shofar to confessing their sins.
Four half-hour episodes are airing on TJC, and here are some clips that provide a sample of what you'll see.
I'm the "and more" in this cavalcade of Jew's Jews. This clip marks one of my proudest moments. That's right, Maer and Rachel, blow me.
While not as old as Peter Feld, here's Eli Valley at a rally in the 1970s. Clearly, he's now voting for Obama.
(Note: Out of respect for Emily Gould, Elizabeth Spiers and countless others wronged for exaggerated reasons, the YM Tumblr remains "dark" until after Yom Kippur - whoever that person is.)
Not that this would surprise any of you, but I did high school debate for three years. Really though, four, if you count the freshman Public Speaking class where, after my final - a speech in which I expounded for ten minutes upon the merits of Sisqo's "The Thong Song" - I was recruited for next year's debate team, and signed up for the class without a choice.
My forensics teacher/coach was one of these tough-but-fair assholes who was consistently on your ass, yet, was also one of the few adults in that panopticon of bullshit who - as much of a punk as you were - you couldn't quite stomach not respecting. My first year, I did this terrible event called Congress. They put you in a room and you ran a debate on individual policies and legislation which you would propose (i.e. "Resolved that the U.S. military strategy on the Middle East be 'Jews or Nuke 'Em' as applied to nuclear proliferation"). The Congress sessions would run for five or six hours; there were 20 kids in a room, the kids ran the room, one unfortunate parent had to judge it. Congress is the bottom-feeding of debate, as I soon learned: all the greenhorns, all the idiots, the hicks and mouthbreathers. Fuck that.
My next year I did what's referred to as Parliamentary Debate (now they changed it completely, it's some other dumbed-down single-resolution bullshit. At one point it was actually called Ted Turner Debate, which is astute, because the rule-change encouraged all of these bombastic idiots and psychopaths to sign up for it). The one kid who came up with me from said freshman Public Speaking class was the school's B-Team quarterback. By the time he was my partner, he was the second-string Varsity quarterback. We had the worst goddamn high school football team I'd never seen. I think I went to a game once, and it was really depressing. Anyway: I was a funny Jew, and he was a quick-on-his-feet Goy. It worked out, somehow.
Parliamentary Debate gives you 15 minutes to prep on a topic you're given for each individual round, each team gets three speeches, and one team gets to make a closing argument without being interrupted by cross-examination, which you can otherwise rudely subject the other team to for the entirety of the debate. Oh, and also, if you had an audience, they were encouraged to knock their desks or boo you, depending on what the situation called for. Needless to say, it was the least civil event one could partake in, and eventually, amounted to a bloodsport by the time you got to that closing argument. I loved it. Soon enough, our first-string quarterback got fucked up due in no small part to a particularly diminutive offensive line, which my partner now had to deal with. So I was out a partner and, when you lose your debate partner, you don't team up again, because you will no doubt hate whoever they pair you with. Also, I wasn't about to do Policy debate, which required both a new teammate and a great deal of intensely extensive research. And possibly some Debate Camp. Policy was the "hardcore" debate, and is now the most popular form. But no way in hell was I going to Debate Camp. Those kids were freakishly good, and really, unless you did Policy, camps were for suckers who didn't know about Jewish summer camps. Suckers.
He does not want your life.
So I did what we called L/D, or "Lincoln-Douglas Debate." You wrote your case based on that month's resolution, and you supported a value for and against with a respective criterion that helped execute said case and a few contentions using philosophical imperatives to back it. I would get stoned the night before, spend two hours bullshitting my way through guys like Kant, Maslow, and Bentham (who I still refuse to take the time to care about or understand), wake up the next morning, ritually eat an Egg McMuffin while downing some black coffee, and debate five or six rounds, the Egg McMuffin and coffee excitedly leaving me between rounds. It was a rush, I promise.
I was both a stoner and a disgrace to anybody who worked hard at their cases, which were most people. I was what they referred to as a "lay" debater: ignore the "flow" of the argument (or the by-the-numbers scoring that encourages technical debate) and go straight for the judges, who were often parents. At one point, I even went so far - while debating a topic regarding government spying powers in times of war - to wear a tie splayed with an American flag and a gigantic eagle's head on it. Swear to god. Looked something like this. That kind of shit was sadly eaten up. Don't ever mistake Nevada for a blue state. Anyway, I ditched the tie towards the end. I started to feel hollow.
I eventually blocked out state my senior year - i.e. I'm actually a state champion at something that doesn't involve a civil disobedience charge - on a resolution debating "the spirit of the law over the letter." We also unseated the team that had won the last twelve years, and my name went on a wall in a classroom at Silverado High School. That wall is probably now painted over - the year after we graduated, Coach Misel left for an administrative position. The team fell apart, and the program, which mostly relied on fundraising and had little district funding in the first place, lost all funding and was disbanded, insofar as I know.
This is sad because in high school, I was all but destined to be a total dork who receded into his bedroom at night to make mixtapes and discover bands like Suicide and Bad Brains who I pretended to like but didn't actually like until at least five years later. And I still was that person, for all intents and purposes. But, in all sincerity, debate gave me the confidence to be a total fucking asshole, and to not take any bullshit from anyone without at least making them feel like an idiot, first. It made my high school career exponentially more fulfilling - from being totally and completely unfulfilling - and it wasn't just me.
A large segment of our team were on with us because they were taking the class for the "easy credit," and it was a wide category: kids who had parents who worked graveyard shifts; kids who would've coasted through high school, gone to dealer school, and shuffled decks for the rest of their lives, whose enormous potential was completely untapped; kids who had yet to walk out of sixth period and shuffle home with any shade of the magnanimous or sense of self in a school overcrowded by about 2,000 warmish bodies. When you did Varsity, you got a Varsity letter - I never wore it, because I hated those ugly-ass jackets (teal and purple; also, who needs a Varsity jacket in Las Vegas?!) - and to some people, that meant something. It should have.
Two movies came out on DVD recently about high school debate that are better than good; this is important because there are plenty that aren't. The first was a Sundance darling called Rocket Science, brought to you by the guy who directed the great documentary about the other famous schoolyard-intellect throwdown, Spellbound.
Rocket Science isn't perfect: like most indies to come from Sundance nowadays, it's a little too quirky for its own good at some points. But it is the story of a kid with little to no talent for this kind of thing, tapped to try and give it a go. It has all the crucial elements of a good debate movie (a genre being invented in front of your eyes): the up-from-nothing shykid story; the "legend" whose talent is as misunderstood by him/her as it is everyone else; the beautiful alpha-girl who stands in opposition to almost every girl you'd ever meet in high school (brilliant, smart, assertive, confident, smoker), who would just as soon break your heart as she would hand your ass to you in a round (played stunningly by Anna Kendrick); the public school vs. prep school competitiveness; the ambivalent family who doesn't understand debate (most people don't), etc. It's also about teenage love and existentialism, and it's a decent take on it. Again, not perfect, but a little difficult to resist.
Better yet, though, is the superior documentary Resolved, which might still be available on HBO On Demand.
Resolved spares us none of the complexities of high school debate and its very real implications: the costs, both figurative and literal; the vast differences in capability in regards to wealthy schools and schools in lower-income neighborhoods; the intense work put into debate, the students who're truly passionate about it - complex individuals for 18 year-olds, far more than you or I ever were - and strong evidence of the very real fulfillment I argued for earlier. I don't want to ruin too much, but if you watched the trailer, you saw kids speaking at supersonic speeds: that's called "spewing" or "spreading", and it's a common policy debate tactic. The idea is to fill in as many words (and thus: arguments) as you can within your allotted time.
It's bullshit, and it takes away from the intellectual discourse at the heart of debate. Two kids from a lower-income school - Louis Blackwell and Richard Funches of Jordan High, in Long Beach - see through it, along with the mounds of evidence better-funded teams use to their advantage during debates that they don't have access to (you think a public school is going to pay for a Lexus-Nexus subscription? Ha!). They're underdogs like hell, but they take the California state championship, and go on to compete for the motherlode (which I never even wanted to attempt; I tried to quit after every year) at the Tournament of Champions. And when - against the odds - they get there? They take the entire system on. They run a three-contention round om which they speak (relatively) slowly, and turn the debate into something it never was and probably never will be again: an argument about the nature of discourse, and the heart of the "sport" itself. It's the kind of intellectual rogue spirit that all of us could take something from, the kind that should be championed in public education more often. The fact that it comes from two kids from a dilapidated public school in Long Beach makes it that much sweeter. They're the heart and soul of this film, they're not in it enough, and they're unbelievable to watch. If you don't have faith in the youth any more, this might help restore a little. They make a near goddamn perfect case for it, and high school debate at large.
"These photographs examine Midwestern suburban housing subdivisions. They depict finished and lived in homes and neighborhoods, homes and neighborhoods in the process of being built, model homes and neighborhoods used for sales purposes, as well as the environment in and around them."
Ah, Democracy. You can't beat it -- something fucking Shelly Silver is banking on. So much so that in my sleep he gerrymandered my fucking district! Yeah, and that prick Brian Kavanaugh (I voted for you, bitch!) was out pimping for him. After running on the 'throw the bums out' ticket.
Turns out a really narrow sliver of District 74 buts down below Houston. I guess I really am still an East Villager. So I march in one of the 17 schools on my block, armed with a printout with very specific instructions about where I should vote. And am reprimanded by a door worker for my temerity (and better info). Who pours through a book, and promptly tells me the wrong district. This is what happened when I went for the presidential primary. I gave up that time, thinking in a fit of progressive angst I had registered as a Green or something. But I checked, and no, my name is somewhere in this fucking building. Since I am the only voter there, I command a certain about of public service attention.
I go to the next table, where I show my card, and they send me to another table. Wrong again. This woman seems like she can dial a phone, so I show my card to her, and with a bit of under her breath 'I am surrounded by fools', she walks me over to table number four, where she wakes up the poll worker so I can vote. There is lots of discussion about how to fill in a card and where to write my voter number. Number Two. That's me (always the bridesmaid, you know?).
You know how they train them to reset the machines? She yells (and I mean yells, since Methadone Joe is nodding off again), 'Did you flush the toilet?' He turns, distracted (it's been six or so seconds she she last spoke to him, so the inattention is, you know, reasonable). He repeats the up-and-down motion on the side of the voting machine, and I go do my business. I have only three races, and I don't know shit about the other two, so I do what I always do when faced with such a conundrum: I voted for the women. Someday the Republicans are going to get wise to that kind of thinking.
"I really need a super special talented editorial intern. Think about people you know, students, cousins, whomever. Ideally I want someone who really wants to be a writer. A young, hungry, confident writer who isn't gonna tell me they have food poisoning as an excuse to not be at work. SAVE THE SPEECHES FOR MALCOLM X!
Jk...but not that much. (I actually know how serious food poisoning is so it bothers me when people lie about having it).
There is potential for a paid position. I want this intern sitch to blossom into something beautiful. Organization is key.
Email Olivia@missbehavemag.com If you email anywhere other than this address you will automatically NOT get the internship. Can you handle that? Was I too abrasive just now? If you think I was, you probably won't want to be my intern."
Can we please get a read on Chunklet? YM wants to interview the H2O machine (ie Henry Owings) and is soliciting opinions and/or questions from the general populace of losers like you. Submit in the comments (or, alternatively, to info@krucoff.com, if only because he needs the email).
We are in a recession. I know this because last year I only needed to flash an American Express card to receive a free (or to use industry parlance, complimentary) pedicab ride across the footbridge between the Shea Stadium 7 stop and the entrance to the US Open grounds. But American Express, long considered sheltered from the economic crises that aren’t supposed to make their way up to its affluent clientele, has nevertheless seen its stock drop by 30% since last September. And so this year, no pedicabs.
So Ashley and I walked, our Rainbows and Jack Rogerses thwapping along the wooden planks. We were surrounded by an army of tennis shoes and Crocs that made far less noise, although their wearers were not so discreet: “She’s using a surrogate for her baby!” announced a lady behind me to her pals, one of whom cracked a joke: “I shoulda done that too! I coulda kept my old figure!”
If you like tennis and love the back of your thighs sticking to bleachers, you should go to the Open for an early round day session. You’ll see seeded players on small side courts where you can sit close enough to watch them fiddle with their racquet strings and hear them mutter obscenities under their breath in foreign languages. You’ll be surrounded by contingents of proud Korean nationals waving flags at their beloved countrymen and clusters of know-it-all Connecticut grandfathers trying to one-up each other with their knowledge of obscure but promising young pups.
You’ll sweat, a lot.
I paid $4 for the daily draw sheet and promptly lost it. So Ashley and I stuck to the tried-and-true method of following crowd noise to find the best matches and then, finding them too crowded, resorted to the tried-and-truer trick of getting some fried stuff for lunch and washing it down with $13 alcoholic beverages. We wandered some more. Unable to snag a seat in the Grandstand, where Andy Murray was embroiled in an intense matchup with Michael Llodra, we retreated to our nosebleed seats in Arthur Ashe Stadium to see Venus take on a hopeful. In the grand tradition of Featured Early Round Matches Between A Williams Sister And A Nobody, it was kind of a dud.
We people-watched. The median US Open attendee happened to be sitting right in front of us: 40-something woman, curlyish brown hair gathered into a low ponytail above which perched a white hat (autographed by someone) above which perched a pair of sunglasses. The back of her neck (rising from her sleeveless polo, natch) was festooned by a medley of lanyards given out at the Open like so many lollipops at the bank teller. One (American Express!) was attached to an earpiece through which you could listen to the match on the radio while watching it in the stadium. Another held a clear plastic sleeve that in turn held her ticket. (Ash and I saw this product later at the concession stand: horrifyingly, it was priced at $17.) The third, Evian, featured pink lettering and was clipped to a small bottle of complimentary Evian spray water which you could mist over your face to cool down and then mist over your face a few minutes later to cool down again once the first mist had settled and begun to boil in the sun.
I couldn’t see whether she was sporting a fanny pack, but one can assume.
Behind us, a cell phone began blasting the theme to The Office. Glares all around, some obscured by visors. The owner of the phone, oblivious, sighed in exasperation. “God, it’s Yuri again. He won’t stop calling!” Venus won another point and the speakers, strangely, began blasting Avril Lavigne. I pointed across the court. “There’s Venus’ mom!” Ashley squinted, searching. “See that mop of orange hair?”
Venus demolished her opponent, smiled sweetly and waved to the crowd. We exited the stadium (Ashley wanted to see if we could snag some more swag.) A booth called Juvederm (a new gel-based product offering by Botox, which clearly knows its audience) advertised complimentary massages with a catch: a 30 minute wait. We inquired about some padded seat cover things that we had seen people dorkily toting around and were told apologetically that there were no more left but that we could enter to win a free Juvederm consultation if we so desired!! We did not so desire, but between you and me: later that night I took a longer look in the mirror than usual, running my finger across my smile lines and wondering.
We sat down at an outdoor bar and each ordered a Honey Deuce, the “signature drink” which was allegedly created by Grey Goose “to embody the spirit of the US Open”. What it was: vodka, lemonade, Chambord, and melon balls, served in a commemorative cup. What I got: everything but the melon balls. No matter: I amassed four commemorative cups in short order.
A group of people walked by and I noticed their t-shirts: Tennis Lovers for Obama.
Two gals (the proper nomenclature for this type of person - they are not women, or ladies, or even broads - they are gals.) sidled up behind us and wondered loudly what to get. I held up my drink. “This is really good!” I confided. “It’s the signature drink.” The women peered at it. “Oh, that’s the drink that Debbie had 8 of last year!” one exclaimed. I could just picture Debbie, sunburned and frizzy-haired, double fisting Honey Deuces and braying “The diet starts tomorrow!” at no one in particular. I couldn’t help but be charmed. “Where’s Debbie this year?” Ashley asked, deadpan. The gals giggled, then guffawed. We offered them our seats and headed toward the courts.
Now, a brief history lesson: the provenance of the much-maligned popped collar is surprisingly utilitarian, intended to shield tender necks from raging UV rays while on the golf course or the sailboat. Or at the US Open, where this sartorial snafu can serve an extra purpose. An older couple in front of us Evian-misted their faces every few minutes; the lukewarm water dribbled down their necks and was absorbed by their stiff collars. They didn’t seem to notice: we were all glued to the court in Armstrong Stadium, where unseeded American Mardy Fish was winning a thrilling match. (He’s since beaten James Blake and some French dude, and if you’re a tennis novice you could do worse than to hitch to Fish. I should write political slogans.)
And now the match was over and we were Debbie-drunk. (At least I was – it’s hard to tell with Ash.) So we trudged back over the pedicabless bridge, a little more slowly this time, and took our seats on the 7 train across from three brash and obnoxious girls with untraceable accents. I did my best to shoot them dirty looks and roll my eyes conspicuously, but it was no use. I distracted myself with US Weekly. (Fave celeb child: Kingston.)
Twenty minutes later, the girls were gone. I think they got off at the wrong stop.
Shit's true: YM and the YM Tumblr have multiple contributors, most of whom tend to blame one another when asked if something that went up is theirs (my tip: if it's indignant, it's Nic, if it's self-righteous, it's Andrew, and if it's intentionally bad, that's me). Well, to the nine people reading this, you've now got someone else to blame for our shit: meet the newest contributor to YM, Bakes.
When the Dramaspora was still in full force, two secret guest-bloggers were invited to contribute, one by Andrew, the other by me. I brought Bakes on because there's too much penis up in this motherfucker, and I can only handle the snausages-fest for so long before my propensity for extended dialogues about Glenn Danzig and "fuck the po-lice" reaches its breaking point. I broke the news to The Boss about three weeks after she had been on board - he called my slipping her the login "just violating enough," which is an incredible compliment around here. Violating the Boss is something you only get to do once every Full Moon over San Loco. She's done nothing but great things since then, and she's a sneaky one. I can't tell you how many times I've emailed Andrew or Bakes asking which one of them wrote a particular item on any given day. Yes, it's true: we aim to confuse, and she's captured the spirit of that in a manner befitting someone I delight in having around, when I can tell it's her.
Bakes hails from one of the Whitest Places in America, and it confuses her when I talk about "that rapper music." She knows a lot about money and shit, and bars like Dorian's that we'd never be caught dead in before but can now venture into with a certified safari guide; i.e. places that are both the hive of some of the biggest assholes in New York and a locale further up our own asses then ever previously spelunked. Best of all, Katie's a good fit for us as evidenced by a conversation we once had in which we discussed the nature of her birthday party, filled with both three-piece business types and bloggers. We were discussing the disparities in that way in which we discuss things, and Katie astutely noted: "You guys are far more judgmental of them than they would ever be of you!"
"Of course!" Andrew and I simultaneously exclaimed.
The fact that she's still around means she is definitely one of us. Welcome to the shit, soldier.
