My disinterested, calm tones were really unnerving him. He wasn’t exactly angry, but rather more exasperated. And bemused, completely thrown off by a would-be customer trying such a poorly thought-out prank and counting on the manager’s apparent stupidity. It was slowly dawning on him that this wasn’t some bizarre misunderstanding, but instead a deliberate, premeditated con job.
“Why? Why did you do this?” His voice was strained, like a parent who has just discovered his kid Crayola-ing the living room wall.
“Well, obviously, because I didn’t have a reservation and I wanted to sit here. Is that so unreasonable?”
My companions were loving this. The general manager continued to linger and began to display the seven stages of customer service grief: pleading, then shouting, then cajoling, then joking, then more shouting, then crying, then threatening to call the cops.
We didn’t care. We refused to budge. There were drinks before us, the pleasure of an exceptional meal awaited us, and we had less to lose than he did. At this point, I became really interested in how far I could stretch this. We weren’t doing anything illegal. Slightly rude, possibly—OK, incredibly rude—but, oy fucking vey, I thought. It’s not like we were planning to dine and dash. We were going to pay live American currency, and surely the real Mr. Paglieri would be happy to be seated on the mezzanine.
Unfortunately, we’d burrowed too deep under the skin of this man, our general manager. When he retreated, I could see him anxiously making a phone call. And right about then, I decided I didn’t want to be dragged out of there like a whore from church just for the sake of a few yuks. We had to end our adventure. Immediately.
After hurling my napkin to the table with a flourish, I stormed out, spouting a raft of nasty epithets in my wake as we exited. I imagine Marie Antoinette could not have done it with more aplomb as she left her cell en route to the guillotine.
“What you did today was unconscionable,” the manager had spat at us as we walked out with our heads held high.
We all received lifetime bans from the restaurant, of course. Though, because they knew me as Mr. Paglieri and nothing else, I don’t know how they planned to enforce the ban.
The Pastis incident set off a fascinating revelation for me.
Criminals tend to be impulsive and incapable of empathy. Why? For the rush, that sensation you feel when you embark on something illicit and you completely get away with it. I felt the same rush on that day at Pastis. Except my crime was completely legal. Sure, they’d threatened to call the cops, but even then, what could they do? Book us on a charge of impersonating a reservation? Hardly a justifiable collar for the NYPD. They’d just sigh and roll their eyes and shoot dirty looks at the general manager as they led us to the sidewalk and set us free.
I was glad I got caught. Sure, if we’d gotten away with it, we’d have had a delightful meal and a chuckle. But the discovery of our complicity blew this crisis into a drama. In addition to the thrill I felt, I had a story to go along with it. This is what I’d been searching for and unable to find. A legal con, just like this one. A social grift that has no repercussions. A kick against the societal conventions that I’d never adhered to anyway, a way of breaking laws that aren’t on the books.
This time I’d fucked up and gotten busted. But, with a bit of planning, I knew I could pull off that kind of shit using my curious brand of bravado. With this kind of caper, the only thing I might suffer, if exposed, would be temporary embarrassment. Not really a problem. I don’t get embarrassed. I don’t feel shame. I’ve somehow managed to expel those feelings from my emotional repertoire.
My incipient love for social crime began to blossom. Getting noticed, being singled out, garnering attention. I loved it. It was something I’d dabbled with at school, initially for survival, and then, well, just for the hell of it. It was a kind of performance art—except that phrase makes me want to wrench my pelvis through my throat.
It was just me. But me times a million, my character turned into a character, a caricature of myself being me. A billboard that’s not just outside your apartment window but sitting in your living room all the time, every day, advertising yours truly. A celebrity with none of the legwork.
I consider myself a sit-down comedian. That’s a stand-up comedian, but with less substance abuse. I wanted attention and all the trappings that went along with it. But I didn’t want to be doing an open-mike slot at the Laugh Factory at four thirty in the morning. Or be out in Hollywood standing in line, headshot in hand, trying to get a thirty-second walk-on on the new 90210. I’d dipped my very talented toe into that world but soon lost curiosity. I’d discovered that the chances of me actually doing something interesting with that were dismally slim. I way prefer the instant gratification, the positive reinforcement, the high of making someone laugh.
I wanted to be a recognized face, but without paying all the dues—or any dues, actually. Hey, you think that sounds lazy and narcissistic? What about all those fucking wannabes on American Idol? Come on, if they really believed in themselves, they’d just go out and tour the toilets of middle America, delivering their cheesy take on soft rock. They could pay their dues the hard way, slowly clawing up that impossible ladder. But they choose to roll the dice and stick their faces on a TV talent show and hope they’ll get lucky. Who can blame them? But, excuse me, artistic integrity? When you’re warbling an Alanis Morissette tune to J-Lo? Probably as close as you can get to the complete opposite of artistic integrity. In my book, anyhow.
As for me, I wanted to perform. I just didn’t have a format. Always a problem. I had a desire to entertain (I know, I’m so selfless; I just want to give), but the conventional route doesn’t interest me. Like I said, I’m a nonconformist.
We think there’s only one way you’re allowed to be famous—the route movie stars, game-show hosts, and television personalities take. You can even be “famous for being famous.” Fame is just another commodity. Like a house in the suburbs.
And the entertainment world bestows fame with a fickle finger. Once you’ve got it, you have to be always looking behind you, terrified that the younger, prettier version of you is coming up to snatch the food, and the pussy, out of your mouth. It’s all designed to keep a prick like me in my place. I don’t want to take orders and perform to someone else’s satisfaction just to have a successful, if mediocre, career that might give me a shot at fame. I don’t want to be documented on basic cable, then—because I show even the slightest hint of who I really am—be left to fade away and be forgotten. No thanks!
I want instant success and recognition with as little effort as possible, completely on my own terms, putting my completely unique, monetizable talents out there.
Sound impossible? Fuck you. Don’t you know who I think I am?
I set about turning Justin Ross Lee into JRL. The cipher that would lead us to the promised land. “The ego that attacked New York,” as the New York Post succinctly described me. “The most strategic swimmer in the social media cesspool,” as the New York Times proclaimed, slightly more eloquently, and perhaps, accurately. A pure self-promoter who thrives on audience recognition and the media’s incomprehensibility. They can’t figure me out, which means they can’t leave me alone. Just adds fuel to my subtle plans for world domination.
So, finally, I had my format. What happened at Pastis brought together all the various ingredients, and suddenly I saw the light. My name, my face, my obnoxiousness, my talent for getting bad press, my partying, my business interests, my love life, my JewJetting, and my social media presence. All I had to do was work each element against each other to keep the chemical reaction sparking along, to keep that weird alchemy of being here now and staying in the public eye, the public mind, for a long time. Piece of piss. I was born to do it.
There’s more to it than that. There’s no night school to learn this shit. You won’t find it at the JCC. There were role models and sympathizers along the way, but I’m pretty much out here on my own. I had my natural ins
tincts, and the rest I picked up and developed as I went along. Little systems and contingencies to cause the most mayhem and produce maximum exposure. Most of these I’ll share with you; some I’ll take to my grave. But it boils down to setting immediate goals and doing everything in your power to achieve them. Even if the prize is minuscule, it’s not important. Hey, it’s all about the journey toward the goal, right?
Just like in that restaurant. I wanted that table. I pitched a glass over. I got what I wanted. And then I figured out what I wanted to do with it.
Lesson 1: How to Be Hated
There are some people out there, sanctimonious types mainly, who consider goodness to be a virtue. There were a slew of them populating my hometown, growing up. They perpetuate the idea that if you can’t say anything nice, you don’t say anything at all.
I always tell my mother when I’m in the day’s newspaper, and she always asks me the same question: “Is it good news?”
No, Mom. It’s never good news. That’s not the line I’m in. It’s something of a harsh toke for her. Most people don’t want to make waves; it seems unnatural. They want to drift through life without pissing people off, avoiding conflict at all turns. It’s a great way to have zero drama and absolutely no intrigue in your life. If they were to appear in the press, it would be for some charitable deed or social contribution. The thought of hitting the headlines and being featured negatively would break their little hearts. From the second we splat out all over the delivery-room floor, we’re looking for love and acceptance. Positive reinforcement. Not to be yelled at.
But once you clamber over that mental hurdle of acceptance and realize you don’t have to be liked, it’s incredibly liberating. The old adage that all press is good press holds up to a certain extent (unless you’re caught trying to lure kids into your van or you’re Mel Gibson). If you get in the paper for reaching your goal for the United Way, there will be a thumbnail-sized image of you lost on page 14, and that’ll be it. If you’re appearing due to some obnoxiously shitty thing you’ve said or done, it’ll run and run. Especially if you keep adding fuel to the fire. The secret to Donald Trump’s success . . .
Being nice and being liked are incredibly easy. You just basically have to stand there, smile, and not stab anyone. You have to be Mother Teresa, who I’m sure was a wonderful broad but would have never gotten a reservation at Smith & Wollensky. But to be hated and not immediately dismissed is a total tightrope walk. And it’s a much, much harder approach to instigate and pull off. For every Howard Stern there are a dozen Charlie Sheens.
Personally, I think the margin has to be around 49 percent to 50 percent. Fifty percent liking me, 49 percent hating me, and a single percentage point who seems to do both. That’s where I want to do all my business, in that 1 percent. The people driven crazy by my antics but who daren’t look away. The gawkers. The ones who just can’t put me down. I get under their skin and live there. Drives them crazy.
Of course, it’s easy to hate me, and if you can’t be bothered to find out the reason, joke’s on Jew. There’s more to me than being a simple hate figure—any douche bag could do that. I’m walking social satire over here, and if you don’t get it, you can just keep strolling.
But it’s so hard to balance. It’s what I spend the majority of my time trying to decipher. Push things too far, pick on the wrong person, say the wrong thing, and people will just walk away. Tweak their buttons in just the right way, and they’ll sit up and beg. If I’m spotted inside some splendid, luxurious nightclub sipping Cristal with some shiksa on my lap, the populace will just snort, roll their eyes, and bail. Show me getting kicked out of same nightclub, or refused entry because the doorman hates me and he pushes me over and steals my phone and I have a meltdown and call the cops, it creates a narrative. People might think I’m a complete ass, but they’ll engage. They’ll want to read to the end.
Generating this type of hate has been made so much easier thanks to social media. It’s the perfect platform for picking bullshit fights. And people love it when you tackle the famous, even if it’s manufactured. They don’t care; they just want to see some blood on the canvas. It all has to do with pitch. You have to pick the right person to do battle with, and you need some evidence that it took place. A picture means everything. I can say I’ve picked a fight with whoever, but if there’s a picture of me standing next to them, it adds legitimacy. You choose someone that people have heard of but don’t care too much about. If they are beloved, they’re instantly going to get all the sympathy. If they’re despised, it’s too easy a target.
If there’s some perceived slight and I go after the latest degenerate bolstering TMZ’s ratings, it’s win-win. If they engage and respond, fabulous. I can spin that out to a healthy amount of quotes and coverage. If they ignore me, even better. I can keep picking at that particular scab and have the focus be completely on myself. People make up their own minds about the celebs, their stance, and their particular peccadilloes. Everyone loves to take sides in a fight—it makes them feel engaged.
The people following this charade get to live vicariously through me. They’d love to be dickish to some hag from The View, but who gives a shit about their opinion? If I can get them nicely riled and foaming at the mouth on Twitter, followed up by a little piece in Page Six and a few scandalous quotes from yours truly, then effectively my job is done. You people love it. How do I know? You tell me. Not always directly, but that’s the other beauty surrounding social media. There are tons of stats and graphs and analytics that tell me exactly when I’ve made your pussy wet.
I knew I’d made it in the hatred stakes when I started to be invited and uninvited to the same event multiple times. First, I’d be asked to attend; then someone else would call and tell me my presence would not be appreciated; then the first guy would call and apologize about the second guy; then I’d get a terse e-mail urging me to stay away; and then a car would arrive to pick me up. And either way I’d get paid. I was just turning up to drink champagne for fuck’s sake.
It was then I knew I was doing something right.
CHAPTER 2
HITTING JEWBERTY
February 1999
It was winter in central New Hampshire, and it was as cold as fuck. At Brewster Academy, the fabulously expensive and privileged child prison in which I was interred, all the pupils were required to do sports. It was mandatory.
I don’t do sports.
Sports make you shvitz. I’m not planning on sweating unless dinner, drinks, and light foreplay precedes it. I’m terrible at sports, so why would I bother? Let the lunkheads and pituitary cases enjoy their ball handling, and let me go and harass the baton twirlers or something. It was twenty below! And you want me to run out onto a frozen field while wearing shorts that leave nothing to the imagination?
I was just establishing my credentials as a fully fledged provocateur at Brewster, and the school was beginning to bitterly regret my existence. But being forced to take part in sports was still a problem. They were a big deal, elevated way beyond academic prowess. Laughable, really.
I knew I had to weasel out of it, but that meant dealing with the professionally asexual athletic director (Subaru Sue) and the dean of students (we’ll call him Dean Doucheborn), with whom I shared a mutual loathing. He soon came to represent everything I hated about boarding school and was the perfect personification of the behavioral code I attempted to destroy from within. Needless to say, I was a pain in his prick.
Rather than take the route of perpetual illness or feigned injury, I knew I needed a more Machiavellian approach to get out of hockey or baseball or whatever the hell it was they did on that field out there. I arranged a summit between myself, Subaru Sue, and Dean Doucheborn, following all correct protocols and the proper procedure. I dressed as finely as school clothing rules allowed and collected the evidence I needed in a Tumi leather briefcase.
I displayed none of my usual bravado but entered the office and addressed them as if I were a salesman tryin
g to get them to purchase my new line of urinal cakes.
“Thank you for seeing me,” I intoned. “I would like to present you with an offer, which I feel will be beneficial to all of us.”
They looked at me with the bored, impassive, unimpressed glare I’d come to earn from some of the faculty members of Brewster Academy.
“As you know, I am not particularly engrossed in the competitive sports offered here at Brewster, despite the excellence of the program.”
I offered a distinguished nod to Subaru Sue, who nodded back, then looked annoyed when she realized she was joining in this ludicrous charade.
“But obviously, for the sake of school spirit and my own educational advancement, I desperately wish to participate in any way I can. And so, with that in mind, I’d hope you will carefully consider my proposal . . .”
I allowed a dramatic pause to be established. I think Doucheborn was about to throw a Jesus fish at me. I opened my briefcase and handed them both an embossed, professionally finished business card.
“I would like to offer my services to the school as the first student director of athletics.”
They looked at the card sitting in their sweaty palms. It read “Justin R. Lee. Student Director of Athletics.”
(Business cards are cheap, and they always impress.)
They both opened their mouths in reproach, so I continued quickly.
“This role will keep me highly occupied, and I promise to dedicate myself fully to the position. Obviously, with a demanding job like this, many of my other extracurricular activities will have to be curbed.”
They looked at each other. They were considering whether to take the bribe. My inference was clear. If they let me take on this bullshit appointment, I would be less of a dick and total bane of their existence. I’d be too involved in my “directing” to indulge in my current routine of provocation and general dickishness.
Don't You Know Who I Think I Am?: Confessions of a First-Class Asshole Page 2