Mad money

If disaster is the great equalizer and money is the ultimate discriminator, then why are they best friends?             No one is really supposed to talk about money. However, we wake up every morning in order to make it. We think and sacrifice important holidays and occasions like a sibling’s wedding, to preserve it. It allows us to be who we are, in terms of knowledge, physical appearance and standard of living. It is at the very heart of our capitalist world, even communists have gone bling and Russia just gave up and showed the world how it’s really done. Socially, emotionally and even in health, money make us feel secure. It makes us feel free. It makes us feel successful.

However, there is a reason why we still don’t really talk about it — why we only reveal our paychecks to our spouses for the sake of paying bills and managing expectations. Traditionally, it was shameful to talk about it because it was not in good taste. It was never polite to show off and one should show refinement instead, in humble dress and a layered show of knowledge. Even in polite circles that still exist in our time people just don’t talk about it because it can make other people who make less or more than us feel uncomfortable.

Hello, Year 2000, when, with Hummers and (as gossip columnists would like to call them) celebutards making quick millions, the days of being discreet were only reserved for the one percent of the truly rich who could still afford dignity. Paris Hilton wore a dress made out of chips from the Palms Casino worth $1 million. That’s class. Cher has a limo for her wig. A dog named Trouble inherited $12 million from hotel witch Leona Helmsley. Money has become the weapon of the beautiful, stupid and vile.

I’m talking about tabloid money here. In real life, money still plays an insidious part in romance, domestic disputes, social acceptance and most especially deceit. In Miami every bartender along South Beach curiously owns a sports car. They live in some box at the periphery of SB, but they drive themselves towards the action in a Porsche. Some high-living families live solely on their credit cards, paying only minimums each month. You can wear designer clothing, buy a townhouse and a car to accent your seemingly enviable existence with a piece of plastic. However, things like cab fare and paying employees might be a little bit of a problem.

I have a name of such people: Shamalites. Seriously, they borrow everything from clothes, shoes, accessories and cars down to freebie grooming. It’s almost like an art. I have come across some of these types. They are indeed charming and make for great company, but they are most certainly trouble. It has been said that one is most noble when living within his means.

You hear these stories all over. So and so bought fake designer handbags to add to her genuine handbags in order to create an illusionary handbag farm. So and so lives in a house owned by a bank. So and so invited non-shamalites for dinner and when the bill came, the so-so card was declined.

Why?

Someone e-mailed me once asking if it really was true that I fly economy. Hello, yes. It reminded me of that quote by Dorothy in Jerry Maguire: “First class used to be a better meal, now it’s a better life.” Is it, really?

Well, Fiancé and I were researching on going to Tibet for a soul-enriching trip. After calculating the rates for the flights, the daily visa fees and the Amans (well, I was already bleeding after the visa fees; might as well go all the way), it seemed to me that even finding yourself can cost… a lot. Of course, this is because Tibet actually has an Aman and you can actually find yourself while watching a great episode of Mad Men for free.

This is a materialistic world indeed. I remember having a Patrick Bateman moment when we were paying for dinner in HK. All my friends whipped out their Centurions save for one who brandished a nice little Optima card. One person actually said, “Oh, color!” The funny thing is the person with the Optima was the one who actually made a lot of money. The Centurions were all just extension cards. Shamalite!

I remember living in London and promising myself to walk instead of riding one of those black cabs. Like a moth to a flame I always got into a cab the minute I got out of my apartment. Each ride sometimes cost as much as an airplane ticket to Boracay. Welcome to the museum of waste.

One of my flatmates was a Bin Laden — a good Bin Laden. Her parents disowned Osama and her best friend is Salman Rushdie. She was born into such a privileged life, yet she gave it all up to become a pop star. She changed her name and dressed up like a chic homeless person each day so she could score a gig. When I would moan about my problems she would simply tell me, “Try being a Bin Laden.” Here she was, rich as shit, and she wanted none of it. It was not effing terrorist money, either: her family has one of the biggest construction companies in the world and owns part of Microsoft, so it’s legit. (I reiterate that her family disowned Osama, hate him and unfriended him in their hallowed Facebooks.) She ditched her fancy friends, she ditched her inheritance and she only kept her Chanel purses in the wake of her reinvention (I could never throw away my Chanels either, so shoot me). She ate simply, wore the same clothes and sometimes borrowed mine and used my computer (the only downer in our friendship) because she couldn’t afford to buy her own. I mean, borrowing someone’s computer is so personal, like lending someone your underwear. But she was so nice that I let her boost her My Space hits on my precious Mac. She was the anti-shamalite. What impresses me most about her is that she was pursuing a dream; she treated people well and was very suspicious of our wealthier friends. The only thing that impressed her was originality. “You get lost in it,” she told me. “I had to stop talking to my father because he could not understand why my happiness did not depend on wealth.”

I realized that those who truly have/had it know what money can really do to you. I suggest you read Fortune magazine’s current cover story on Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. This is how money should roll.

Somewhere between the American Dream and my Bin Laden flatmate, I saw how people quickly forgot that money is not happiness. I’ve seen how ugly the reading of the will can get for some families. How it can destroy marriages. How it destroys children in those marriages. How it destroys friendships. Let’s not forget how it effed up the US and Europe. Money and too much of it can lead to many, many disasters. Best friends, indeed.

Another friend of mine put all her money into a townhouse with her boyfriend. They kitted the whole place with designer furniture and after they were done, they realized they were broke and not really that into each other. They stayed together because neither of them wanted to be homeless. In their more liquid days they impressed each other with lavish trips and gifts. When the well dried up so did the lubricant of their affections.

However, it doesn’t end there.

The spent a joyless few months together, mostly being stunned by being broke and spending all their savings on Patrica Urquiola chairs and its ilk. Then they became friends over eating ramen in their designer kitchen. Then they fell in love again and never moved out of the house. In their poor financial state they learned to depend on each other and not their credit cards.

It’s a modern love story.

For a lot of people money is the emblem of all human success. But watch how it looks when politicians pass it on discreetly to voters’ hands calloused by work. How does it look when a so-called gentleman pays a young girl for sexual services? How does it look when a son gives his parents from the province money to go away so he can live his Jay Gatsby-like existence.

Money can buy you anything. You can buy your way into your society, into power, into love but we all know that the ultimate destination is hell.

You know money is not well spent when you use it to buy things you should never even purchase, like fake bags. This being the kindest of all other evils. The moment you do you have stepped over into the dark side.

So happiness is found somewhere in between. It’s found in an honest place where you have allowed yourself to have food, shelter and sleep. Everything else is gravy.