I'm Back for More Cash

by Tony Kornheiser

  “Maybe they are rich,” I said.

  He thought about that for a second. “Hmmm,” he said, “maybe they are.”

  Then he called his broker and ordered the tuna.

  Investment Tanking

  I love it when the stock market plunges 400 points and some financial analyst on TV says, “This is just a correction.”

  Four hundred points. Kaboom.

  Seven hundred in two days.

  You’re now going to be eating soup until 2009, but this is just a correction.

  Did you ever wonder what they mean by “just a correction”?

  A correction is what they tell you so you’ll stay in the stock market a month longer. Meanwhile, they’re getting out before the crash, which will come tomorrow.

  The flight of the stock market is dizzying. It’s down 616 points one day, up 482 the next. The biggest loss in history could be followed by the biggest gain. The market has swings like my Uncle Sidney before Prozac. It’s like betting on Oprah’s dress size.

  I wouldn’t care EXCEPT IT’S MY RETIREMENT MONEY!

  Either way, I’m going to end up in Florida. The difference is: If the market stays up, I’ll be lying on a chaise by the pool at the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach reading the Daily Racing Form while barely clad bar girls shuttle me frozen margaritas. But if the Nasdaq stays in the toilet, and flushes, I’ll be the guy on the corner of Commercial Boulevard and University Avenue wearing a do-rag and carrying a coin changer on my belt, hawking the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel in the middle of traffic.

  The Nasdaq, ha! Ever wonder what it stands for?

  No Answers, So Don’t Ask Questions.

  People would be jumping out of open windows in downtown office buildings like in the ’20s, except now they build the windows so you can’t open them. So instead of committing suicide, they just fire their personal trainers.

  I may have stayed in the Nasdaq too long. Internet stocks are melting down like Whitney Houston’s career, which is currently a grilled cheese sandwich on Three Mile Island.

  “Don’t panic, it’s just profit taking,” the financial analysts calmly say.

  Profit taking is what smart guys do when they bail out of a stock they believe has become overvalued. And how do the smart guys know when to begin profit taking? Usually, they program their laptops to buzz loudly the moment the name “Anthony I. Kornheiser” pops up on the list of investors.

  The entire goal of investing is to not be standing when the music stops. I’m not only standing, God help me, I also appear to be dancing.

  Analysts say, “Think long term,” but at my age, long-term thinking is wondering what’s on after Friends.

  The sad thing is I have no idea what I’m doing. I don’t even know which stocks I own. I don’t know if I’m in high-tech, biotech, or Georgia Tech. There’s a technical financial name for someone like me: “Moron.” I thought the Nikkei was a concept car by Toyota.

  I got into the stock market late. I was deep in my forties and I still had all my money in the bank, earning 2 percent, like it was low-fat milk. My friends laughed at me. Even the people at the bank laughed at me—they had all their money in the market.

  So I gave my money to a financial adviser who promised me he would get me a greater return than the bank.

  A baboon could do that, Tony.

  Yes, but would a baboon give me steak knives?

  I took a test to see how much investment risk I would accept. I was asked: “How would you describe yourself as an investor?”

  a. aggressive.

  b. moderate.

  c. cautious.

  I wrote in: “victim.”

  I was asked: “If your portfolio lost 15 percent of its value over the course of one year, you would be …”

  a. unconcerned.

  b. slightly concerned.

  c. anxious.

  I wrote in: “Long dead, because when it lost 5 percent I would have leaped out the window.”

  So my guy told me he would be extremely cautious with my portfolio. He would buy only blue-chip stocks. I trusted his judgment. When the monthly statements of my holdings arrived in the mail, I didn’t even read them. I took it on faith that my investments would make me rich. I practiced pronouncing the word concierge.

  Then I got greedy.

  I’m now taking stock tips from my radio producer, a twenty-nine-year-old college dropout who makes about fourteen cents an hour. He is heavily invested in Nasdaq tech stocks, which explains why last week he began to sell his furniture. He put me in “PPVI.” I don’t even know what it stands for. He said it was about to go through the roof. I bought it at 21. The other day, it was at 6½. But I’m sure that’s just a correction.

  My college friend Al is a day trader. A day trader is somebody who is so wired they won’t let him through the Athens airport. About a year ago, Al told me to buy a tech stock he was sure would quadruple in no time. He went on and on about who was backing the stock, what its specs were, what its global prognosis was, blah-blah-blah. I bought it basically to get him to shut up. I bought it at 19¼.

  After one day, I’d forgotten I owned it. Periodically, Al would call and tell me some gobbledygook about projected earnings or rumored takeovers, and caution me to hold on to the stock a little while longer—though in the fruit-fly universe of a day trader, “a little while longer” can mean “until the coffee percolates.”

  A few months went by with no word from Al. Then last week the Nasdaq went blooey, and Al called, asking breathlessly, “Did you get out?”

  Did I get out of what?

  He rattled off a name that sounded like: mega-something.

  I told him I didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “The stock I put you in! You don’t remember it?” Al asked.

  I said he was lucky I remembered him.

  “I forgot all about the stock. Should I have gotten out?” I asked.

  He told me it was now trading at 3. But he was still optimistic about its future.

  “Did you get out?” I asked.

  “Oh, yeah, sure. But I’m back in,” Al said. “I’m calling to tell you it’s a bargain now at 3. You know some morons bought it as high as 19.”

  Yeah, so I heard.

  I’m Rich and You’re Not

  It’s a pity you’re not me, because I’m going to be extraordinarily rich soon.

  In fact, I have already won the $31 million Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes. It’s going to be announced on Super Bowl Sunday.

  I may be a multimillionaire, but I am not inconsiderate. With my entry I included a note informing the Publishers Clearing House people that I’d be at my dad’s condo in Florida that day. I advised the people on the Prize Squad to knock loudly and have patience. My dad is eighty-eight, and his hearing is shot. It may take him a while to get to the door. (I just hope the sirens and flashing lights don’t make him think the paramedics are coming for his neighbor.)

  I know I am going to win. It says right in the packet that “nobody has a better chance to win $31,000,000.00 than” I do. Here’s the winning number, suckers: 00 5820 3289. Read it and weep.

  I almost didn’t enter three other sweepstakes that came in the mail. What do I need with them if I’ve already got $31 million?

  American Family Publishers, for example, is giving away $11 million; they’ve got Ed McMahon’s wizened puss on their envelope. That got me to reconsider: I’m pretty sick of Ed. I’m sure most Americans would be grateful if I used some of that money to put a hit out on him. The rest I could put toward helping promote world peace—or buying something really cool for myself, like a cruise missile.

  American Express Publishing is giving away $1.67 million, which is chump change to me. I’ll probably use it to buy hookers and a gold-plated, fifty-four-inch digital TV to put in my attic. Mercedes-Benz is giving away a new sedan. (They’re also giving away $2,500 in cash. But I’ll probably just hand that out on the street in twenties or give it to my dog.)

 
I’m gonna be loaded.

  Me, Tony Kornheiser.

  Or, me, Ms. Toni Kornheiser. That’s the name on some of my magazine subscriptions. Surely, you recall me writing a few months ago about the weird magazines I’ve been getting, like Meat & Poultry, Fine Cooking, and People in Spanish. Some gremlin has signed me up for all sorts of magazines under the name Toni Kornheiser. Magazine subscriptions are at the heart of all the sweepstakes. The only reason they’re giving away a Mercedes-Benz is to get folks to subscribe to Elle Decor. I’d never heard of Elle Decor—I’d sooner subscribe to Ella Fitzgerald—but if there is a demographic Elle Decor is aiming at, I guarantee you I’m as far away from it as it’s possible to be. The last two Elle Decor readers on Earth would be me and that fat guy in the Miller Lite commercial dancing with his Great Dane.

  You don’t think they’ll withhold the money when Toni Kornheiser wins, do you?

  I could shave my legs and put on a dress. For $31 million I’ll wax my back, too.

  It’s a wonder I’ve never entered a sweepstakes before; they’re so easy to win. I’ve never even played the lottery because I don’t meet the minimum tattoo qualification at most of the stores that sell tickets. Plus, I don’t have the rest of my life to spare waiting behind some fat doofus in a camouflage jacket hunched over forty lottery tickets, agonizing over which numbers to pick.

  “Give me six, fourteen, eighteen, twenty-seven, ummm …”

  “You did say fifteen?”

  “No, fourteen. And give me, uh, three and eighteen. That’s my Pick Six.”

  “Splendid. It is your wish then to select eighteen again?”

  When I go to a convenience store, I’d rather see a guy with a pair of pantyhose over his head waving a sawed-off shotgun than some moron with a lottery form.

  Have I mentioned how glad I am not to be a Canadian? You should see the fine print about Canadians in these entry forms. They must think Canadians are baboons. The Mercedes-Benz one specifies: “In order to win a prize, residents of Canada will be required to correctly answer a time-limited arithmetical skill-test question.”

  A Canadian gets thirty seconds to figure out: “What is the square root of eighteen, plus seventy-eight, times fourteen, minus six, plus the age of Wayne Gretzky’s mother?” What is the problem they have with a Canadian winning a Mercedes-Benz? Do Mercedes do poorly in high-speed collisions with live moose? I mean, I’m sick of Céline Dion, but I wouldn’t require her to recite The Canterbury Tales in order to win a Grammy.

  At this point, my dilemma is how I ought to act when they give me the check. I don’t want to pretend it’s a surprise that I’ve won. Everyone can spot a phony.

  So I’m thinking of coming to the door wearing a satin bathrobe, with a bottle of champagne in one hand and Charlize Theron on the other, then breaking the tension by saying something witty in Mandarin Chinese.

  My friends have begun to ask me if I think having so much money will change me.

  I can’t tell you how much that question offends me, coming from my friends.

  Of course, the money will change me. I intend to become insufferable. Okay, more insufferable.

  I’m going to rub my money in everyone’s face. There’s a writer in town I hold a grudge against. I intend to buy his publication and, at the acquisition party, fire him and have his belongings thrown into the street. I’ll hire Linda Tripp to shadow him everywhere, and tell everybody, “I’m his best friend!”

  My friend Tracee’s grandfather, who is ninety-four years old, has the sweepstakes bug bad. He goes to the post office in Lincoln, Kansas, every day to enter another one. He enters so many that his family got him a postage meter. I asked Tracee how much he’d won so far.

  “Nothing yet,” she said. “But he’s convinced he’s going to win the big one.”

  Not this year, gramps. It’s mine.

  Dealing with a Lot of Frustration

  There’s road rage and air rage, and now here’s garage rage:

  I park in a lot where the cars outnumber the spaces. So when you can’t find a space, you park in the aisle and give your key to an attendant.

  This isn’t rocket science. There’s just one, simple, sacred rule: Give the attendant your key.

  We pick up the story on a day when I have an appointment and my car is being blocked by another car parked in the aisle.

  I go to the attendant and ask him to move the car so I can get to my appointment—nothing of great importance, really, just my one chance to receive a vital, life-saving organ transplant.

  “I can’t move the car,” the attendant tells me. “I have no key.”

  “You have to have a key. Everyone leaves a key,” I say. “That’s the rule. Leave the key. The guy didn’t leave you his key?”

  “Not today,” the attendant says.

  Not today? What, is this guy on the “alternate day” plan? Is he going to wander by and drop off the key tomorrow? Which, you know, would be a little late for the transplant. But, hey, it’s not like I had any big plans for the Fourth of July, anyway.

  (This attendant is not exactly a parking lot savant. And believe me, there are parking lot savants. There used to be a vacant lot up the street where some guy parked cars on the dirt. Who knows if he had a license? Maybe he just opened a window of opportunity and hopped through. My friend Tom discovered it. “The first time I parked there,” he said, “I thought I might be simply handing my car keys to a vagrant. The guy tossed them into one of those huge ten-gallon paint buckets that was filled with other keys. He gave me no tag, no receipt, nothing. I knew I’d never see those babies again. But ten hours later, when I was still fifty yards from the lot, this same ‘attendant’ who looked like he was homeless, this guy who’d seen me once in his life for a total of ten seconds—and even then didn’t seem to even notice me—casually reached into the bucket and came up with my keys like he was shooting fish in a barrel. The man was a genius. And I’m thinking, If this guy had gone into high finance, Alan Greenspan might be working with a squeegee outside the Holland Tunnel.”)

  Meanwhile, the attendant in my lot couldn’t find a key if he were Aerosmith’s roadie.

  “Is there some way to contact the guy and get him to move his car?” I asked, trying to maintain a certain level of calm, and by “a certain level” I mean something short of twitching and foaming at the mouth.

  The attendant shrugged. He looked at the guy’s sticker and tried to match the number to a master list. Not there.

  “Do you know the guy?” I asked.

  “Yes, he is a bald man.”

  “That’s all we have to go on?”

  Great. Michael Jordan is blocking my car.

  The attendant called his supervisors. They showed up, took a look at the car, wrote some stuff down. And left. They waved pleasantly on their way out. I knew they’d get to it immediately. Maybe even right after lunch.

  I began to stew. And by “stew” I mean “simmer at high temperature until done.” I was the only car in the lot that was blocked—and there was nothing I could do about it but wait for the owner to be located. (And flayed like a flank steak.) Ten minutes went by. Then twenty. Then thirty, forty, and fifty. I looked at the car. It was a cheap piece of junk. I thought about getting into my car and plowing into this tiny tin can, knocking it over on its back like a turtle. Nah. Too genteel. As I pondered revenge strategies, I began to think …

  WWTSD?

  What Would Tony Soprano Do?

  Would he, for example, take out a baseball bat and smash all the windows of this car? (He did that in one episode.)

  Would he have four tough, brawny individuals with what Dr. Melfi might call “personality disorders” physically pick up the car, put it on a tow truck, tow it to a boat, take it out to sea, and turn it into a home for carp? (Tony did that to a person in one episode. But for laughs, he shot him first.)

  Would he have Paulie Walnuts whack the guy?

  Would Tony whack the guy himself?

  Or would Tony show his
sensitive side and simply knee the guy in the groin, then rip out his liver and feed it to a neighbor’s pedigreed Pomeranians?

  As I thought about how great it would be to actually be Tony Soprano—and we’re both fat, bald guys named Tony with anger management issues, and our friends call us “T,” so it’s not that big a stretch, except for the fact that he is a fictional character, and as such, has much better dialogue than I have, not to mention a hot, psycho girlfriend—a bald man came toward the parking garage attendant.

  “Whose car am I blocking?” he asked the attendant.

  “Mine,” I said.

  The man walked right past me toward his car, a car key in his hand. He didn’t acknowledge me in any way, except to mutter, “I’m an idiot.”

  He didn’t say he was sorry.

  He didn’t tell me his name.

  He got into his car, started it, and called to me, “I owe you big time.” Then he called out a four-digit number that I assumed was his extension at work.

  Like I should call him.

  For what? So we could go to a karaoke bar?

  I mean, he blocks me; he breaks the One Rule in the lot by not handing in his key; it’s fifty minutes until he gets to his car to move it; I miss my organ transplant; he doesn’t say he’s sorry; he just tosses off a number that may or may not be his extension. Maybe it’s some kind of slang, like “24/7,” that has some secret meaning, like, oh, I don’t know, “Up yours, pal.” How would I know? I don’t even know his name. And I didn’t write down the number. What should I have written it down in, the blood that was pouring out of my eyeballs from waiting fifty minutes for this guy to move his car?

  And now if I want to pursue this matter I should call him?

  Like it’s now my responsibility.

  I should call him?

  I should call Tony Soprano. Tony Soprano should call him. Bada-bing!

  Down, Bob, Down

  Someone has to say this, and it may as well be me.

  I don’t want to know any more about Bob Dole.

  I want him to shut up.