Truth in Advertising Page 0,55

a piece of cake and then not eat it. What’s the point? Is there coffee to go with it? Can I not drink that, too?”

Paulie says, “I think it’s like don’t ask for too much.”

Malcolm says, “Then why not have the saying be something like, ‘Don’t ask for a second piece of cake’?”

Stefano says, “That works much better for me.”

Paulie says, “Does a bear shit in the woods? Is the Pope Catholic?”

Stefano says, “What’s your point?”

Paulie says, “People say that sometimes. Like, when something’s obvious.”

Stefano says, “Of course a bear shits in the woods. The Pope is the head of the Roman Catholic Church. I don’t understand.”

Paulie says, “We had a thing. I mean, you’re gonna think it’s like E-Trade but it’s not E-Trade.”

E-Trade has for several years had wildly successful commercials during the Super Bowl where a baby talks like an adult.

Ian says, “What is it?”

Paulie says, “It’s a baby who talks like an adult.”

Ian says, “That’s E-Trade.”

Paulie says, “No. Listen. It’s different. They’re in a board room and they’re talking about how to save the world.”

I say, “With voices like adults or like babies?”

Paulie says, “Adults.”

Ian says, “Still E-Trade.”

Paulie says, “Then they’re talking like little kids. High baby voices. My daughter just turned three and she has the most awesome voice you’ve ever heard.”

Ian says, “A kid’s voice is okay. What else happens?”

Stefano says, “That’s as far as we got. Good, though, no?”

Ian says, “Maybe work on it. People like babies.”

Malcolm stands, stretches, then shoves his hand down the back of his pants, scratching his ass aggressively. “If I don’t drink a beer soon, my head’s going to burst into flames.”

The rest stand.

Paulie says, “Who wants to buy me a drink?”

They all nod and shrug.

I say, “I don’t feel we’ve accomplished much. We don’t have much time.”

Stefano says, “This is what I’ve been saying.”

Paulie says, “Fin D? Coming with us?”

I start to say something when Stefano says, “Fin is predisposed this evening, Paulie. A romantic rendezvous.”

They all stop and turn.

Raj says, “Fin. You dog.” Which sounds ridiculous in an Australian-Indian accent.

I say, “Go away.”

They laugh and wander down the hall. I hear Stefano say something about cake.

• • •

Did I mention that I live in MORON?

MORON was the idiot brainchild of a small group of investors who, flush with money from the days before the Big Correction, were planning a new, very expensive, and exceptionally ugly high-rise on the edge of Little Italy. The building—on the corner and across the street from the 100-year-old building I live in—would in no way blend in with the neighborhood, a glass-and-steel monstrosity, Frank Gehry on acid. Huge, glossy posters went up around the proposed site, a sliver of a space surrounded by four-, five-, six-story buildings.

The developers wanted to create buzz. So they thought, Why not create an entirely new neighborhood?! It would be the new “it” neighborhood. SoHo, TriBeCa, Nolita, DUMBO, MORON. It stands for Mott on Rim of Nolita. Which doesn’t really mean anything. It’s Little Italy. But they thought both its meaninglessness and its inanity played perfectly into the early-twenty-first-century zeitgeist of knowing sarcasm and idiocy. We know it’s stupid. We mean it to be stupid. That’s what makes it funny. But we’re also hoping you think that, within the open stupidity, it’s cool.

They blogged and tweeted, Facebooked and LinkedIn. They essentially campaigned for coolness. It never caught on. Part of the problem (besides inanity) was very bad PR. For the building to go ahead it would mean tearing down a small, family-owned shop that had sold fresh mozzarella and cream sauces for generations. A story appeared in The New York Times. People rallied for the shop. The investors hired a PR firm and an ad agency, as well as a Web design firm in Los Angeles. None of it worked. What did work was razing the mozzarella shop in the middle of the night and then constructing the building in six months. The New York Post headline said it best: MORONS LIVE HERE.

That was three years ago. Today the building is barely half full, the rents too high. I’ve heard the original developer defaulted, was indicted, and left the country. At some point every late afternoon, the new building blocks the sun and my apartment goes dark.

I go home to shower and change but instead head straight to the couch to review the many personal letters I’ve received in the mail that day. These include notes from my dear friends American Express and Con Ed. And a