My wife and I make okay money in a middle class area, but, due to a combination of good luck, and contrived to circumstances, we recently got to watch a college football game in the stadium’s super executive corporate sponsor level suite. It was awesome. Open bar, amazing catered food, and people networking all around me who are clearly in the c-suite of their respective companies. I had a list of crazy things I was going to say if someone asked me what I did, but it never came up.
I got very randomly bumped up to first class on a transatlantic flight for business. I do not travel much for business, especially internationally. So, I definitely should not have had priority over more regular accounts. I have to assume I just got lucky, and that flight happened to have no frequent flyers.
It was an eye opening experience. I got to hang out in a secret lounge. When my flight was ready to board, multiple staff escorted us to the gate. When we landed, we took a private van to a secret side entrance, which had its own first class only passport check. We were brought to another secret first class lounge through hidden back hallways to wait for our connections. The lounge looked down over the terminal, and the exit was a nondescript door you’d assume was a maintenance entrance.
Being around that level of service and the other people in first class, it’s clear the wealthy live in another world. I looked up how much that ticket normally goes for after, and full price is for many people a yearly salary. It was nice, but it seems like a crazy way to divide resources.
I got invited to some sort of literary award ceremony at the French embassy a few years back. I, uh, severely underdressed for the occasion. I got the invite for participating in the Albertine book store’s bookclub, and for whatever reason, my brain went, “I can show up to this like I would dress for a bookclub session, it’s the same people.” Spoiler, it was not, and I really should have been at least in a button up and slacks, rather than my hoodie and jeans. As luck would have it, the gentleman who won the award, Emmanuel Dongala, was sat next to me during the speeches. I can still remember the look of “What the classless, American fuck is this guy doing?” as he took his seat next to me.
On the other hand, I went to my first opera at the NY Metropolitan Opera last year basically dressed the same way, and it was surprisingly entirely fine. Turns out, very few people want to be sat for hours in formal attire when hardly anyone can see you in the dark, anyway.
Which opera did you see? I am an opera lover and I’ve seen people wearing tuxedos with flip-flops, and a dog wearing a rhinestone necklace.
I went and saw Nabucco. Was pretty enjoyable, and I got to sit in the orchestra section with one of the cheaper tickets they release the day of the performance. Would go back for another if I could avail myself of the program again.
I had also deliberately picked one of the shorter operas they put on that season, wasn’t trying to commit to some 5 hour monstrosity straight out the gate.
Nabucco is a good way to begin with opera indeed! Very early Verdi and definitely not the quality of his later most famous works but still pretty amazing. The role of Abigaille is called a voice wrecker so it’s not often performed. Glad you liked.
Honestly, where I live now.
I rent a bare-bones townhouse. Two rooms, and a basement with an old washer and dryer, and a small garage.
I have always lived in apartments, sometimes with fewer rooms than people. Having an entire place of my own (that’s not a studio apartment) is sometimes unbelievable to me. A washer and dryer downstairs? No quarters? I don’t have to look for a spot, I have a garage? I don’t have to cram my entire life in one room, I have an “office!?” This will likely be the closest to “home owner” I’ll get and it still feels unreal after almost two years here. It’s certainly not going into anyone’s Pinterest board, and there are issues, but I always feel “bougie” when I open the garage 🤣
I felt like that when we rented the townhouse. It was also pretty bare bones, but it was nice to have a house. Sadly the landlord evicted us so his kid could have his place, so I ended up in an apartment again, and now my rent is so much more as we lived in the townhouse for so long. I do have a washer and dryer and dishwasher though so at least that is nice and it’s beautifully renovated but it still sucks. We had this incredible patio garden.
One time I went to the restaurant DAMON BAEHREL. I was informed afterwards that it had a 10-year waiting list and only seated 100 people a month. Despite having regularly commuted between the Midwest and the East Coast, getting there felt like the longest road trip I’ve ever taken since I had to go with my mother-in-law and some of it is on a gravel road.
I had to Google DAMON BAEHREL to spell it and I’m not going to bother retyping it.
It was far and away the most pretentious, absurd, cartoonishly fancy experience I’ve ever had, and I’ve dressed up in antique ceremonial Moroccan robes for a banquet at the art museum in the city I grew up in. At the art museum I sat next to the mayor’s mother in a room of 200 people conversely, about 30 people total could fit into DAMON BAEHREL.
I thought the art museum banquet was fancy, but when I was little I thought Boston Market and IBC root beer were fancy.
DAMON BAEHREL was the kind of place that serves a dozen ‘courses’ but each one is like one cracker one sliver of cheese and one spritz of condiment with maybe a sliver of sausage made from some bespoke farm animal. He insisted that the water we were drinking was actually unreduced tree sap. Everything was served on various slabs of wood some with the bark still on it. The slabs were so much larger than the food It looked like putting a coin on a serving platter for each course.
I just felt embarrassed every time I looked at the Damon and his staff. They had clearly heard his bullshit so many times that it was hard for them to feign credulity anymore.
Anyway, that shit was way too fancy for me. Clearly it was just wasted on me.
Yeah, but how was that food?
I just tried a fine dining restaurant for the first time this past weekend.
I was just curious after watching a bunch of cooking competitions on Netflix about how good that kind of food could be so decided to find a Michelin star restaurant and give it a try.
While the portions were small, the food was on another level. Even the “worst” of it was only that because it wasn’t amazing, but still really good.
The food was so good that when I got home and snacked that night, it was hard to enjoy any of my usual favorite snacks because it all felt so basic after that.
It was fancy in other regards, too. Like when my buddy went to the bathroom, someone came over and folded his cloth napkin rather than leave it bunched up on the table.
Plus, even though the portions were tiny and we joked about whether we’d need to stop for fast-food afterwards, by the end of the 9 or so courses, I felt completely satisfied. Even the snacking I mentioned was more due to the munchies than actual hunger.
It was expensive though. Two taster menu plus two drinks each came to about 500 CAD plus tip. And it was one of the cheaper options. There was a two Michelin star sushi place that advertised seats starting at 800 and I’m not even sure that includes any food, though I think it gets the “chef cooks what he wants” menu, which tbf would probably be way better than what I’d want anyways.
This place only needed to be booked like a month in advance, so the place you’re talking about sounds like it’s on another level itself. Though I’m curious how much that other level translates to better food.
Fine dining is one thing but the ultra exclusive, incredibly pretentious, top of the range place like DAMON BAEHREL is on another level entirely and has ceased, long ago, to be about making something a person wants to eat.
It’s about the art in just about the worst way possible. Fair play to the people who are into this but it’s complete bullshit, relies on borderline slave labour to produce and actively dislikes it’s audience.
I wanted to learn more and found this article: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/08/29/damon-baehrel-the-most-exclusive-restaurant-in-america
Sounds like the ten year wait list might be made up and who knows where he gets his meats, but the whole thing just sounds fascinating. From his website, the current price is $550 USD a head, though it’s subject to change several times per week.
He sounds like one of those guys that has a whole bunch of little projects going on at any time and over the years accumulated enough results from those to host some volume of dinner parties. And possibly exaggerates or lies about some of them (though hard to say if he treats his cooking similarly to how he treats his legend/myth).
I’m convinced that Damon Baehrel is a semi-fake restaurant. Like, it’s real, but doesn’t actually take reservations or serve real guests, and the owner/chef lies about everything in order to seem more mysterious.
This article from 2016 lays out the case.
So I don’t think it’s a particularly good example of fine dining, as it’s doing a lot of things different from a normal restaurant that is open to members of the public.
My older brother is a Tony Award winning producer and I took a trip to NYC ten years ago. His business partner is a former schoolteacher who became friends with a celebrity and got rich producing her stage plays.
Before going to NYC, I called them up and told them “Hey, I’m going to go see the Yankees while I’m there. There are $15 tickets in the outfield. Wanna go?” It was Jeter’s last year and I wanted to see him play live at Yankee Stadium. Their response was “Don’t worry, we’ll handle it.”
Handling it meant lunch at the stadium club, with Peyton Manning and a bunch of celebrities in the dining room and lobster piled higher than my head, literally. The most luxurious lunch I’ve had in my life. Then we rode the escalator down to our seats, through a tunnel lined with every free candy you can think of on both sides, to the second row behind the Yankee dugout, with our own dedicated server, who kept bringing us wonderful drinks. (TEN FEET AWAY FROM DEREK JETER) Then, in the third inning, another surprise: someone taps me on my shoulder holding one of the bases from batting practice, which my brother’s business partner purchased and had framed for me with my ticket and a photo.
That was too overwhelming. I couldn’t help but cry.
We went for another meal in the 7th inning. The food was still fresh and amazing.
The Yankees lost that day, but it’s okay.
I call it my ‘Make a Wish’ Day.
That’s hilarious, that you had to pretend you were dying of cancer for such extravagance to make sense in your life.
I think you misread what I wrote.
I call it my ‘Make a Wish’ Day.
you had to pretend you were dying of cancer
I don’t think he did. Just a joke.
Wow, that’s a dream ballpark experience for a true fan. I feel glad for you. That’s really cool.
Business class flight to Japan. I’m just some engineer in a rural factory and was headed to some rural factories, but damn was the trip fancy. As we landed my coworker had to explain that the booze was free.
It was definitely a wild journey
Shouldn’t your coworker have told you that the drinks were free before you landed?
He had no idea I hadn’t flown like that before I mentioned I had to ask the stewardess the price of the food and drinks
I ate dinner in NYC at the penthouse fancy restaurant of some five star hotel. I could barely eat I was so intimidated. The food at that time was for some reason having a trend of “foams”, which is this weird thing where it was like lobster with a side of foamy stuff. I never understood how that was food, but the restaurant by itself was incredible.
A foam is just another texture of a sauce as a garnish, and typically not the main sauce. It’s not as “why was that even food” as people put on. It’s just an easy scapegoat for something different.
Cotton candy is air fluff that melts instantly on your tongue and leaves a bubblegum or artificial cherry taste behind. A foam is a similar thing, just with basil or truffle to compliment a piece of lamb sauced with its jus.
It’s just lazy commentary.
It wasn’t like a sauce. It was like a foam whipped with bits of lobster. Like lobster flavoured foam, it definitely wasn’t an accompaniment. I’m not describing it right, but it wasn’t like a side. It’s been like twenty years.
Also cuisine is art and at times creating new sensations is an excellent way of expressing that art. Other times not so much.
Not mine, but my uncle’s story. In the late 70s or 80s, can’t remember, my uncle was a young man in Boston, MA. New transplant to the US with limited English working minimum wage at a famous hotel in town, by famous I mean all the rock and roll stars stayed in this hotel when they were in Boston. There are other wild stories for another day.
On this day his manager was scrambling to look for him and told him that he had to drive a VIP somewhere. He was speechless, and asked wtf is going on ? He had a humble tiny hatchback manual drive ford fiesta? with only a driver’s side mirror. The artist was Blondie and she was late for the show. They wanted the most non descript car to zip halfway through the clogged city to the venue.
He was like wtf, but fuckkit here we go.
He drove the Blondie singer from the hotel to the venue quick and easy like superman and saved the day.
I have to go back and ask what conversation they had.
Debbie Harry! I wonder what she thought of the whole thing haha
Ohhhhn Blondie, I thought you were just being weirdly descriptive
Me too. Thanks goodness he’s still alive. Barely. I’ll ask him and post followup. I wish she could read this post and give some background
Blondie is the band and Debbie Harry is the singer’s name.
A girl I dated was friends with the daughter of one of Microsoft’s founders and we got invited to their house to watch Seafair. I think it’d be safe to call it a small mansion right on the water with a dock. The kitchen was as big as my whole apartment. The technology was a bit dated but must’ve been state of the art when it was built. Switches for automated everything. On the water we had front row seats to the Blue Angels. They are incredibly loud up close.
The guy was super down to earth. Had a good conversation where he showed genuine interest in me and what I did.
9.9/10, the hot tub was broken
Paul Allen had no kids so you could just say one of Bill Gates’ daughters.
Bill Gates seems like a chill dude to talk too. Maybe one of these days.
Though I wouldn’t suggest bringing up open source software around him. Unless it’s to bitch about people doing things for free when you want to charge lots of money for it.
“Oh yeah I contribute to Linux branches every once in a while”
“…You what?”
No helicopter food delivery? She was definitely holding back on the super foods. She must have liked you, to not spook you away with the show of wealth.
Bill Gates definitely hit the late burger and roast beef joints in Cambridge and Boston back in the day.
Fundraiser at a very expensive art school. I was a scholarship student at a cocktail mixer, and I was at the mixer because it was being held in the department I was majoring in. All of the people that were attending were fine arts patrons, the kind of people that drop tens of thousands on art without thinking twice about it. I was–literally–a punk kid with tattoos and shit tons of piercings, and I was supposed to be pleasant to people with millions more than I’ll ever have.
Got to piss off a world famous fashion designer that evening, so that was cool.
If they didn’t want to deal with punks they shouldn’t deal with art students. I hear the business students are perfectly pleasant if you lobotomize yourself.
Ironically, after working in production for over a decade, I’m hoping to go back to school for business management. Because it turns out that there’s zero career track and advancement potential if I stick with what I already know. Depressing shit.
If you don’t mind, I’d like to hear more about the world famous fashion designer you pissed off. That sounds funny
I… Can’t do that without giving away far too much personal information. Unfortunately.
Okay that’s fair. Thanks anyway
What kind of art do you do?
I went to school for fashion design. (Hence interacting with a famous designer in school. Come to think of it, the head of the department at the time was someone with a significant international reputation. And I still think he’s a pretentious dick.) These days I do industrial print media, because I burned out hard in school, due to a combination of raging, untreated ADHD and 48+ hour days working in studio.
I would not recommend fashion design to anyone that has any interest in a healthy work/life balance, and fast fashion has absolutely gutted anything domestic that’s of any interest at all.
Drop names immediately please.
If I drop that name, that gives people enough to figure out which school I went to, what years, and they can correlate that with my post history to figure out exactly who I am IRL.
I’ve probably posted enough already that someone with a large enough database could do that already, but dropping names would make it much easier for just about any schmuck with an internet connection and decent search skill.
(And believe me, I would love to tell people the name of the pretentious dick that was the head of the department, but… Aaargh.)
A friend invited me on vacation with her family. They are very wealthy compared to me. It was clear up front that lodging and meals were covered by them, but I was hazy on everything else. It stressed me out so bad.
Do I want to go with them to do some Expensive Activity? Of course, but am I paying for it? Can I afford it? Even if I can, do I want to spend my limited money on that? Do they see me as a freeloader? How are these other not-rich friends navigating this because no one ever seems to talk about money? Fortunately, my friend saw my stress and had a discrete conversation with me where we set some guidelines.
My aunt did hostile takeovers and her husband was even more rich. Their kitchen was bigger than my entire house. And that was their vacation house. I couldn’t appreciate most of it, I was just a kid. But I remember my cousin had a pool in his room.
pool in his room
Come on. You’re making this up, don’t you? Or are there really people who have a pool in their kids room?
Come on, that’s too wild.
Having seen how my buddy lives with his family being in the ~$100M net worth range and them overall being quite modest people, I’d 100% believe someone well above that and/or wanting to flaunt their wealth in a stupidly ostentatious manner would put a pool in their kid’s room.
I can’t imagine doing it as a parent. My kids drowning is a pretty big, realistic fear. Maybe for a teenager? Even then though…
I have been picked up by a private airplane once. And I don’t mean an private jet like a bombardier global (which are still beyond cool), I mean like a full size long range airliner. The conference room alone was larger than my apartment at the time. Who especially was send my our customer to pick up my colleague and me. Even crazier: As it was somewhat urgent the customer “called” someone in his countries air traffic control and even though we arrived through rush hour at this airport we landed priority - which meant around 12 large airliners had to wait.
(To make that clear: I am not a prostitute, especially as I am a ugly ass overweight dude, but I work in healthcare and did a fair share of VVIP jobs over the last two decades)
What kind of healthcare you working in with the kind of commute? I’m good at my job nursing but I can’t imagine that’s someething people get flown in for.
Used to work in aeromedical retrieval for a company that has very strong presence in the Gulf region and a somewhat established presence in central Asia. .
Spent a night at the Iceland Blue Lagoon Retreat hotel for a special occasion. It’s like $1800 USD per night so it was a huge splurge. We saw Rebel Wilson staying at the hotel too. It was fancy AF.
Absolutely wasted if you only spend one day, but we couldn’t afford 2.
I was working the booth at a conference and the sales guys closed some big deal there and took everybody at the conference out to a four star restaurant. Since it was in a legal state me and the woman from marketing got really baked before we went in and had $200 steaks with a $400 bottle of wine. There were like 10 people, too so the whole bill must have been at least $4,000.
She was high as hell the whole time and trying to hide it, which was hilarious for me to watch.
I’ve also had Iron Chef Morimoto make sushi for me but since I paid it didn’t feel above my station.
