Take A Report

Went to dinner last week with two customers whom I know very well and one guy I’ve never met before but liked immediately because he picked up the check. We went to Rao’s up in East Harlem and it was the first time I had ever been there.

Mob ties aside, I got no fucking problem with Rao’s. Couple of people told me that I would just “like” the food, but that I would really appreciate the whole atmosphere more. I disagree… I thought the food was very good. I may have had better Italian in my day, but at least Rao’s doesn’t charge you a fucking arm and a leg for a bowl of pasta. Plus they fed me like it was Christmas Day, but I didn’t spend the car ride home doing Lamaze breathing exercises so I wouldn’t shit myself like I do after visiting most other gindaloon joints in the city.

By the way, I sat one table over from Martha Stewart and she is terrible looking… I know that’s not surprising, but you would think someone would put a little lipstick on that pig before trotting it out to Rao’s, no?

Conversely, I went to Milos a couple days before that with another group of customers. We had a fantastic meal, but they charged us like the fish we ordered was stuffed with cocaine. The filthy Greeks who own that place are six months removed from slinging around spinach pie in a greasy diner for $1.50 a pop, and now they’re charging me $41 a pound for Red Snapper? Pardon the pun, but those Greeks really “fuck you in the ass” when the bill comes.

And speaking of snapper…

Take a report.

-Large

I got drunk last Thursday.

Not fall down drunk, or even slur-my-speech drunk… But we were outdoors (not on a rooftop), it was a beautiful night, we were with a bunch of easy-going customers, and so I chased after it a little. Started with a couple of requisite vodkas and ended with a pilsner glass full of Bailey’s. But here’s the interesting thing… I drank white wine the whole time in between.

“White wine, you say, Large?”… Yes, white wine. And I’ll never fucking do it again. It was ice cold, so I drank it like beer. I didn’t eat anything, and I mixed it with a couple shots of tequila. It tore up my stomach something terrible. I slept on the floor of my bathroom until my wife woke me up and tucked me in around 3:30 or so.

— SIDEBAR: Said it before, and I’ll say it again… My wife is a fucking saint. She signed up for the whole “for better or for worse” deal, and 9 years later she waits patiently for the “better” part to kick in. Direct quote from the missus the morning after: “Are you feeling alright today, because last night you left the inside of the toilet looking like a Rorschach test.” That’s a tough road to hoe for any ordinary woman, so I’m lucky I got my hooks into someone extraordinary. —

Got in the office around 6:15 Friday morning, and thank God the place was pretty empty. Stumbled to the Mens Room near the back of my floor and I saw some boxes against the wall just outside of the can. There was a woman’s overcoat laying across the boxes. I think someone left it there to be thrown out. Or maybe someone just left it there to leave it there… I really have no fucking idea. Anyhoo, I grab the coat and bring it into the handicap stall. I take a dump… I throw up in that same bowl… I lay the coat out on the floor of the spacious stall… I take off my glasses… I sleep for twenty minutes on top of the coat… I get up… Put on my glasses… Leave the coat in the stall… Gargle… And walk back to my desk thinking to myself, “What kind of disgraced animal steals a stranger’s coat and sleeps on it in a public bathroom?”

Take a report on me.

-Large

You have a guy in the office who doesn’t like to pay for food?

Do you find that often-times it’s the wealthiest guys in your office that turn out being the cheapest of cock-suckers when it comes to buying lunch?

You know anyone who orders a $13 salad, gives the intern a ten and a five to go pick it up in the lobby, and then gives the kid the “old stink-eye” when he doesn’t get change back?

You ever hear a guy who wears $3,000 suits and plays $250 rounds of golf twice a week complain about having to cough up a twenty every day for lunch?

How about a guy who doesn’t go in with the group who is ordering pizza, but has the balls to take the first slice when it gets to the fucking desk?

Or if you bring something into the office for the people who sit around you… maybe an Entemann’s All Butter French Crumb Cake for example… and the loudmouth 2 rows over wonders why he wasn’t offered a slice, even though in the 10 years you’ve worked with him he hasn’t so much bought you a stick of fucking gum?

How about a boss who, while operating from a position of power, asks if he can grab a little bit of Chinese even though he didn’t order with your crew? Like there’s a chance in hell I’m saying no to the seagull that essentially signs my check.

Or how a bout the uninvited taint who takes a couple of chicken wings, and then offers to throw you a couple of bucks like you’re some penny-pinching animal? Keep your fucking money, just leave my food alone.

You ever go to dinner with a customer that you KNOW is a millionaire many times over, and watch him stiff the coat-check girl or maybe the parking attendant?

Or watch a salesman shortchange a tip at a business dinner even though he’s going to be reimbursed for whatever-the-fuck he spends?

You got a guy who comes around whenever there’s a big food print just to stare at the spread and make unfunny comments?… “What are you feeding an army?”… Yeah, real funny. Now go back to your hole and look at some fucking charts.

Is there a guy on your desk who feels he’s “above” going down to the lobby to pick up lunch? I know there’s a pecking order in every office, but suck it up, and go if everyone else is busy.

Or if you ask the requisite, “Anybody need a coffee from the truck?” on your way downstairs, and the only douche who asks for an iced Chai w/ skim is the same douche who will NEVER return the favor?

If you answered “NO” to all of these questions, then you do not work on a trading desk.

I might start brown-bagging my lunch and eating it under my desk… Gotta buffer myself from all these douche-bags.

Take a report.

-Large

In most stories you have to wait until the very end before you are given the “moral of the story”. Well this time, I’m gonna give it to you straight away:

Sometimes you can take a terrible idea… Tweak it slightly… And create something truly monumental.

I fucking hate six-foot heroes. They are flat out terrible. I have never been at a party and said, “Oh cool, they got a six-footer!” By the time you get around to eating them they are usually below room temperature and the hero itself looks like it’s been ravaged by a pack of fucking wolves. The bread is always to rigid, there’s shredded lettuce everywhere, there’s always two or three slices that have their tops missing for some reason, and you gotta add your own condiments… If I’m gonna make my own sandwich, then I wanna make the whole god-damned thing.

Then, when your done, you have to return the decorative 2×4 it was delivered on.

That being said, I was sitting at my desk last Thursday morning, and out of the corner of my eye I spied 2 people I didn’t recognize walk by carrying a cellophane wrapped anomaly. I shrugged it off by saying, “No way could that be a six-foot hero, it’s only 7 AM.”, and I went back to sending out another worthless Bloomberg.

Maybe 10 or 15 minutes later I saw another 2 strangers walk by with paper plates that had what looked like giant egg sandwiches on them, and it hit me… Somebody ordered a six-foot BREAKFAST hero. How revolutionary! What genius!

That rigid bread, which is born out of necessity to maintain it’s 6-feet of structural integrity, is fucking IDEAL for an egg sandwich. Shit, you just have to cut the loaf in half, layer on slices of American cheese, add 10 or 20 scrambled egg omelets laid end-to-end, and then top half-way with bacon slices, and the other half with sausage patties… It’s as simple as it is perfect.

And don’t worry about it getting cold, because you flop down 6-feet of grease on a trading desk or construction site on any given Friday morning, and it’s gone within fucking minutes… Guaranteed.

Bone-Ape-Tit (that’s French for “enjoy”), and take a report.

-Large

Heading down to Atlanta this afternoon on a little business. Then the wife comes down tomorrow and we’re gonna boondoggle it right through the weekend… All on the company teat.

If anyone happens to be at Chop’s tonight, feel free to buy a drink for the tallest and baldest guy in the restaurant.

Gonna do a monster piece of content next week on this trip and last week’s jaunt to Houston, so stay tuned.

Take a report.

-Large

Are you like me? Do you powder your balls?

Well if you do, you’re gonna kick yourself for not coming up with this product before. It’s Balla Tingle Powder, a minty talc designed specifically to spruce up a man’s balls. Fucking genius, right?

I started powdering up in college… at first with the regular Gold Bond brand powder. Eventually I worked my way up to the Gold Bond Triple Medicated in the green bottle, and it changed my life. Apparently, the medication is some sort of minty mentholyptus, because just the slightest pinch on the upper thigh and your junk feels like it’s on the top of a fucking mountain. And if your bold enough to throw another little pinch “around the corner”, you’ll get a sensation on your backdoor that I can only describe as a “sweet pain”… Like your sitting on a bag of Altoids.

Anyhoo, Balla decided to capitalize on this phenomenon, and began marketing their powder as “the ultimate men’s anti-wetness solution”. My only hope is that the good scientists at Balla Labs have devised some sort of anti-clumping agent… Because after a long day in the salt mines, my sweat, mixed with enough ball powder, has been known to form a paste that you can spackle a fucking wall with.

Take a report.

-Large

Real quick… I’m a fat Irish guy, and I’m fond of Italian food.  About three years ago every Italian restaurant in Manhattan decided to replace the basket of bread and butter that was on their tables with a basket of bread and a saucer of olive oil to dip into.  It’s fucking disgraceful.

Bring back the butter so we can once again eat like gentlemen and let’s forget this whole “Olive Oil Era” ever happened.

Take a report.

-Large