Isn't That Rich?: Life Among the 1 Percent

by Richard Kirshenbaum

  “Do you want to do the dinner for six?” I asked Dana.

  “Not particularly,” she said.

  “Why is that?”

  “The only reason the so-and-sos are interested in the so-and-sos is for business.”

  “Yes, that’s clear,” I admitted.

  “I see a friend-jumping situation happening before my very eyes,” she said in an annoyed tone.

  “Well, they did the right thing by inviting us,” I said.

  “The only reason so-and-so invited you,” Dana said knowingly, “is because he knows you would pick up the check for dinner. And I’ve come to the conclusion that we don’t have to pay twice.”

  And with that, she sent our regrets.

  17. THE WEALFIE

  Like a Selfie, but with More Money and Status

  DANA AND I VENTURED DOWNTOWN to yet another trendy restaurant (that I am constantly being dragged to) with friends. As we waited for our table, the Aging Platinum Benefactress emerged from the crowd and made her way over for a double air kiss, leaving an imprint of her potent eau de parfum on my suit jacket.

  I had always admired APB. She was impeccably turned out in vintage Chanel, and her earrings had the handiwork and markings of the artful Place Vendôme jeweler. She hadn’t changed in years but looked somehow prettier and visibly softer. Had her work been performed by the Impossibly Blond and Glamorous Socialite’s husband?

  “How have you been?” I asked, as she withdrew her iPhone from her handbag.

  “Here,” she said, shoving under my nose a photo of her scantily clad daughter who was seductively posing at the infinity pool of the fabled hotel in Antibes. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

  She scrolled for more photos, then retrieved one of her son. “Isn’t he gorgeous? I think you should use him in one of your campaigns.”

  When I hesitated to respond, she practically shoved the iPhone into my sight line. “Isn’t he GORGEOUS???” she implored again, showing me photos of him in upscale action poses, playing polo and shooting clay pigeons. Her tone demanded an affirmative response.

  “You must be very proud of him. A handsome young man,” was all I could think of. “And I am sure he has all the social élan of his mother,” I added, raising an eyebrow.

  “He’s the next big thing. I’ll have his agent call you. I heard you have that new agency, SWAT something,” she said. “Sounds cute.”

  It wasn’t the first time I had been subjected to someone’s “wealfies,” a term I coined to describe selfies taken in a luxury context that confirm one has money, status, and social currency.

  While poor digital manners have abounded for years with people attached to their devices during dinner parties, driving, and, yes, even at funerals, there is a new level of coarseness that one must contend with. While the selfie institutionalized digital narcissism, the wealfie is used as a weapon, a way to convey crass materialism and lord one’s social standing over others.

  Does anyone really care about someone else’s children? Hear ye, hear ye, the answer is a resounding NO. Unless I have seen your offspring grow up and I actually like them, no photos, please. And I certainly don’t want to see your teenage offspring in model pose being transported by Sherpas with name-brand luggage.

  “I really don’t know what to say.” I turned to Dana after we were seated. “I would have thought that manners would have translated to technology but even APB is acting like a vulgarian.”

  Les gens de finance aren’t exactly known for their witty or stimulating repartee, but there I was at a cocktail party in the impressive limestone maison de capital-investissement, trying not to bump into the conceptual art, which oddly seemed to be installed in the stately home’s most highly trafficked areas. Why not just move the soup cans out of harm’s way? Sérieusement!

  Someone, who was consuming Avión tequila at an alarming rate, was leaning against a rare canvas of an abstract artist one only sees in museums when I was approached by the host. He introduced me to the imbibing Master of the Universe, George (not his real name) who was eager to make my acquaintance.

  “Oh, you’re the ad guy who writes those columns. My wife hates you. In fact, she told me if I ever run into you to tell you that you shouldn’t be writing about us,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “Do I even know your wife?” I asked.

  He mentioned the familiar name of an imperious woman I often see berating waiters in tony restaurants.

  “You know her, right?”

  “I was raised that if you don’t have anything pleasant to say, don’t say anything at all.”

  “I think we are going to be friends.” He laughed. “I agree with you, by the way. I’m like one of your articles where they stay together because of the money.”

  To my host’s credit, he picked up on my discomfort and tried to broker a change of subject.

  “You should see George’s new apartment on the hundred and fiftieth floor (not his real floor) of the newest building on Fifty-Seventh Street (not his real address).”

  “Here,” George said, taking out his iPad to show me what eighty-five million dollars buys. “Let me show you the view.” The ultimate wealfie.

  “It comes with this kitchen,” he said. “But we’re ripping the WHOLE THING OUT.” He scrolled through half a dozen photos faster than you can say nouveau riche.

  “I feel like we just had an intimate moment, and I just met you,” I said coyly.

  “How’s that?”

  “Well, are you going to show me a compromising photo of your wife or your balance sheet next?”

  “I like you.” He laughed. “I think we’re going to be friends. Let’s make dinner plans.”

  “Well, it will be hard to make dinner plans if your wife hates me.”

  “Don’t be so sensitive. She hates me, too.”

  “Listen, it was nice meeting you and seeing your assets,” I said, jumping over the metal floor sculpture in a dash to escape the situation.

  “It’s the new show-and-tell, with an emphasis on the show,” the LA-based Power Agent said over dinner at Le Cirque. (Is there a better Dover sole and French fries in New York, I ask?)

  “If you’re sitting in the front row during Paris Fashion Week, you would absolutely take, as you say, a wealfie, and when you get back to New York you casually show it to your girlfriend and everyone knows where your seat was. It’s digital bragging rights.”

  “Sounds like a lot of work.” I was addicted to the fries and started searching for more before I caved and put in for a second order.

  “It actually isn’t. I see it in LA all the time. So-and-so is at a party and they take a wealfie next to a star at someone’s dinner party and then it’s shown discreetly to friends. A wealfie tells a million words about who they are and who their social circle is. I guess you can call it personal PR.”

  “I just find the whole thing incredibly annoying,” I admitted.

  “It’s supposed to be annoying,” he said. “They show you wealfies because they want the other person to feel less than.”

  “You know you could be a psychotherapist.” I was impressed.

  “I already am. But in LA we’re called agents.”

  It has been my experience that divorced men either get remarried immediately to whoever will sleep with them or they go through what I call a grazing period. I was at a business meeting at the Downtown outpost of Cipriani with two other married gentlemen when a recently divorced businessman who joined us whipped out his iPad with the artichoke and avocado appetizer.

  First came the wealfies of mansions, Bentleys, polo, and five-star resorts. Next, the model girlfriends.

  “She’s five-foot-eleven and Norwegian,” he said, pulling up a lingerie shot. “I see her when I’m in LA.” He shrugged as the married men salivated. “This is my New York squeeze.” He pulled up a photo of a blond hyper-supermo
del in a swimsuit.

  “Is she real?” one of the men asked.

  “I promise you it’s all real. Every inch.” He smirked, showing the table his conquests.

  “Congratulations on all the fun you’re having,” I offered.

  “Well, I do also want to meet someone, so if anyone knows anyone let me know.”

  “You just showed us four models. Isn’t that enough?” I asked.

  “Of course. But I also need someone I can have a conversation with. I don’t speak supermodel,” he said.

  “I think this falls into the ‘Uptown problem’ category, Ned (not his real name). I don’t think anyone is crying for you.” I laughed.

  “I know,” he said, scrolling away. “I’ll just have to suffer through it.” He sighed.

  I was extremely happily biding my time, alone, thank you very much, watching one of my children at a sporting event when a fellow parent (from another school) plopped himself down and started talking to me despite the fact that I was clearly ensconced in Barron’s.

  “How was your summer?” he asked.

  “Interesting. I had a very un-Hamptons summer,” I offered.

  “The Emptons?” He laughed.

  “So I see you read my columns.”

  “Yes, very funny.”

  “How was yours?” I asked, not really interested in the answer but trying to be polite.

  “Here,” he said, taking out his iPad. “We were in Greece. I rented this yacht.” He showed me the 150-footer. “The best crew I ever had. Then we sailed to Istanbul. We stayed at the Four Seasons. Check out the view of the Bosporus from my suite. Then we flew to Venice. I had a craving for pasta.” He showed me a photo of the bowl of penne.

  Thankfully the whistle blew and I collected my child, said my good-byes, and called my lawyer from the car.

  “Let’s trademark the term wealfie,” I said, then called someone who works for me to take out the URLs for wealfie.com and wealfie.net. “If I’m going to have to put up with this kind of behavior, I might as well own it.”

  18. THE REVERSE BRAG

  How It Puts One Over the Top

  IT WAS A STARRY, STARRY NIGHT at one of New York’s most grand and storied hotels. Sleek, ominous town cars and darkened, menacing SUVs waited in a black line of auto dominoes, pulling up to the curb to deposit some of New York’s most glamorous couples (likely and unlikely) as they emerged in front of the landmarked structure. Once inside, one heard the lowered voices and luxurious swoosh of the long chiffon gowns as they swept across the marble floor, and the subtle click of the heels of the Louboutins and Jimmy Choos, and of the cameras. Not the cold, hard glare of the paparazzi’s flashes, but the discreet and knowing smiles of the society photographers and columnists who were making the rounds, greeting the guests as old friends. Dana and I had purposely missed the cocktail hour (too much socializing), and we made our way into the ballroom for dinner.

  “Do you know who is performing tonight?” I turned to ask my dinner companion, the younger wife of an older Texas Oilman, once I was seated. I knew there was a trend of getting A-list talent to secure an event’s status as A-list.

  “I hear they got so-and-so.” She mentioned the name of one of the world’s most famous musical superstars, who was also an A-list actress.

  “Wow,” I said, nodding my head in approval. “She’s one of the greatest.”

  As the star was introduced, she made her way out on the stage to a low-key smattering of applause—not exactly the ovations she is used to.

  “Hi, y’all,” she said sweetly into the microphone. When she heard the impolite conversation and lack of response, she became visibly agitated.

  “Does anyone care that I’m here?” she asked, like an angry, wounded bird, wobbling a bit on her heels as she took in the slight.

  “I just hope she doesn’t go on and on and do a whole concert,” my dinner companion said, rolling her eyes. “Three or four of her biggest hits and an encore would be perfect.”

  “She has so many hits, though,” I said, a bit perplexed at her reaction.

  “You know these show people,” she declared. “They just go on and on and never know when to stop.”

  “Well, I for one am excited. I mean, it’s a private concert from one of the world’s greatest stars.” I shrugged.

  “I heard her at my friend’s fiftieth. Been there, done that.”

  There was a time when people wanted you to know what they had acquired, or the premium experiences they had that you didn’t or couldn’t have. With the recent distribution of wealth, there has been a democratization of luxury goods and the attending experiences. Now housewives in New Jersey can carry the same bag you have and go on the same vacation you do. The trappings of status and luxury have diminished, causing a group of überwealthy to raise the table stakes for experiences and status in order to once again stand out. A-list stars are now de rigueur for weddings, charity events, bar mitzvahs, and sweet sixteens. Vast donations to private schools ensure one’s children get extra privileges (i.e., extra test time and note takers in classes). Mansions have become private hotels, and art collections have given way to one’s own private museum. While the newer nouveau riche use typical in-your-face tactics to convey their wealth and status, there is a trend among the truly rich and ultrasophisticated to use boredom as a new bragging tactic. The “whatever” attitude allows them to brag, but in a more subtle way that ensures no one can accuse them of outright bragging since they are feigning humbleness. I call this “the reverse brag.” However, the reverse brag is a dangerous tactic as it renders the bragee extremely unlikable. That said, likability does not allow them to accomplish their nefarious braggadocio goals. And while perhaps not a new tactic, reverse bragging is one step above outright bragging as the bragee views it as a more sophisticated type of boasting that is meant to ape old money. For me, however, it only serves to further ostracize the person as a “sophisticated bragger”—worse than a new and clumsy one.

  “One day I’d like to come back as my own children.” Real Estate Mogul shook his head in what I knew would be a classic reverse-brag move.

  “I mean, drivers, bottle service at sixteen, vacations in St. Barths on yachts. … I never had that growing up. I think I may have been too lenient and indulgent,” he proclaimed, looking for acknowledgment and sympathy over the most divine hash browns and Dover sole meunière at Nicola’s.

  “You give in to them too much.” His wife, Doreen, shook her perfectly coiffed head dramatically. “It’s a fault of his. Larry (not his real name) just can’t say no,” she said in an admiring tone that affirmed to all he was a Big Spender!

  “That’s not true,” he said, shooting her a glance. “When Brent (not their son’s real name) wanted a Lamborghini for graduation, I did say no. I mean, who would buy their kid a Lamborghini for college graduation?” He threw his arms in the air like on a game show.

  “I agree,” I said. “I had a Subaru in college and thought I was styling.”

  “Larry, come on.” Doreen gave a mock look of disdain. “Here’s a man who says he won’t buy his son a Lamborghini but then turns around and buys him a Porsche right under my nose. I mean really, Larry. He just can’t say no,” she insisted.

  “Clearly, Larry has a ‘no’ problem,” I said, now looking at the couple with entirely new eyes. Suddenly, I realize they are doing the reverse brag together, as a couple. I realize that this is part of the modus operandi. Whether intentional or not, they have a sort of prerehearsed routine akin to a finely honed vaudeville act.

  “Well, a Porsche isn’t exactly pâté, Larry,” I noted, raising an eyebrow.

  “No. I went out of my way to buy him a pre-owned Porsche. He has to understand the value of a dollar,” Larry explained.

  “And his four-thousand-dollar-a-week allowance?” The wife dramatically accused him of more largesse. “Really, Larry,
you just don’t know how to say no.”

  The waiter brought the bill and laid it down on the table with some delectable biscotti. “Let’s split it,” Larry said.

  “My treat,” I said.

  “Sure. Thanks,” he said, withdrawing his card.

  “I thought Larry couldn’t say no,” Dana joked in a nonjoking fashion.

  “I don’t know what’s worse, having to go to the Oscar or Cannes parties,” the Famous Hollywood Film Producer complained when I ran into him at James Perse in the Malibu Mart. He looked relaxed, despite his schedule and the incessant juggling of statuesque and European blondes.

  “What do you think, Famke (not her real name)?” he called out to the famous underwear model in tow as he emerged from the dressing room in surfer shorts.

  “I zink you need a larger size,” she replied, yawning.

  “Maybe she’s right.” He patted his prodigious stomach. “It’s that awful chef I have for the kids. I mean, it’s just too much food and too formal. I’m not a formal type of guy. Just give me a salad and a burger, but the ex wants the kids to have filet mignon,” he said in a classic reverse-bragging mode. “How’s the ad biz?”

  “It’s been really interesting. Working on lots of great and interesting projects,” I said.

  “You know if didn’t go into the movie biz, I would have loved to have gone into advertising. Really, LA is so tiresome, the parties, the cars, the women …” He motioned to Famke dramatically.

  “Not to mention your homes?” I decided to help him reverse brag and see if he would take the bait.

  “Don’t you know it. I just want to sell the house in Beverly Park. I mean, who needs thirty thousand square feet. I need an apartment or maybe just a simple six thousand square footer.”