Bad Boy Quiz I’ve been called a “bad boy” before. I wasn’t ever sure that term really fit me. So I created a quiz to help people figure out what kind of bad boy they are… Bad Boy Quiz
Halloween Candy Etiquette See I can write about more than just cocaine and hookers. They come every year, without fail: the witches, the ghosts and the superheroes who ring our doorbells. They stand there holding pumpkin baskets shouting “Trick or Treat!” and snarling, no doubt, under their plastic faces. You better be prepared. These little monsters (and pirates and princesses) have expectations, and they expect them to be met or else… Treat Felonies and Misdemeanors Candy Corn The number one offense in Halloween candy. According to the National Confectioners’ Association, candy companies will produce nearly 35 million pounds of corny candy this year. So by my estimation, about 30 million pounds will be immediately tossed, and 5 million pounds will be tasted and then spit out. I was shocked to discover that the leading ingredient in candy corn is not toenail clippings. Who knew? Read Full Article
Where Wall Street goes to Play When I was 25 and working at Morgan Stanley, I remember being at a holiday party. I was looking across the dance floor at a group of traders, a generation above me. They were tapping each other’s beer to make foam shoot out of the bottle. I said to my friend sitting next to me, “If I’m ever that 35-year-old who never grows up,shoot me!” Fast forward 10 years… READ FULL ARTICLE on CNBC
Stealing Celebrity Cheez Doodles Summer. 2002. 10 p.m. I’m at Mexican Radio enjoying a little tequila…Okay, fine, a lot of tequila, but I’m with some of my friends so it’s not like I’m getting warehoused alone. I hear ringing. It’s my cell. “Get your ass up here now,” the voice says. “Dude, I don’t know who you are or what you want, but stay out of my pocket.” “Parker! Parker Posey is here,” my friend Russ says. “Where are you?” I convince my group to head uptown. It’s not easy. I gotta hear shit about getting a nosebleed above 14th Street and crap like that. My friends are still peppering me with questions as we pile into two cabs in Nolita. “Hell’s Kitchen,” I tell the cabby. “And step on it.” The dive bar is perfectly dark. The place smells like a fraternity basement on a Sunday morning. It’s filled with t-shirts and jeans drinking pints of the piss du jour. Mixed in are a few lonely suits looking to catch the next train—they might even be brokers of mine, but I’m not interested. What I’m interested in is sitting at the bar drinking a Bud and eating Cheez Doodles. Apparently Parker is in an off-Broadway show in the neighborhood. She’s yukking it up with a couple of pals. She makes drinking a bottle of Budweiser and eating Cheez Doodles look sexy. READ FULL ARTICLE
I Love New York City I strategically parked on 31st Street near Kips Bay Movie Theater. I was going to see Gone Girl later, but first I was meeting some friends up on 43rd Street. It was a Monday, one of those warm fall days that makes you think global warming isn’t so bad. I didn’t mind walking the 13 blocks. After getting my ticket from the garage attendant, I headed up Lexington Avenue. I passed by a bar with a TV that was showing ESPN highlights to a crowd of zero, an old hotel, an even older doorman building and a cleaners. Lexington Avenue doesn’t have the kind of identity that Park, Madison and 5th have. It’s kind of a mishmash of retail, commercial and residential buildings. But it’s not a destination for recent college grads either. If the Avenues were described as states—Lexington would be Delaware. It’s just kind of there. As I got closer to my endpoint, I gazed across the street to see an old haunt of mine. It was once called the Wetbar; it now has a red sign that just says BAR. It’s still a hotel bar, and from the outside it looks exactly the same. I turned my head and caught my reflection in a glass window. Wow, my hair is long. It looked like an Olympic ski jump in the back. I need a haircut bad. Typically I don’t like to play Russian roulette with my hair, but this was a time for a spontaneous cut. Ironically, on the next block there was a hair salon. I prefer a barber, but I was desperate. Read Full Article
10 outrageous stories of Wall Street Excess On Wall Street we sometimes used the phrase “f– you money.” (I think we stole that term from the hip-hop community.) It’s money spent that is financially offensive to others while perpetuating and maintaining an obscene lifestyle. And while I’m not proud of it I was totally guilty of being that guy… One of the most outrageous things I ever did was to make it rain at Madison Square Garden. Back in my hedge-fund-trader days, I was invited to Morgan Stanley‘s luxury box for a Knick’s game. The skybox is nice, but after your fifth visit, you realize it’s just a wet bar with B-minus chicken fingers and some free Budweiser. So to entertain myself, I invited my cousin Ethan and Johnny Hong Kong, a professional drifter/filmmaker to come with me. I told Morgan Stanley I was bringing two interns. We got there just before tipoff. Read Full Article