November 9, 2009 by Chas Underwood III
#69 - Butlers
Butlers
Price: Tolerating Fake British Accents
Most people will never understand the trials and tribulations that rich people cope with daily. While country mansions, yachts, wine cellars, exotic cars and private islands sound appealing to most, it is easy to forget that not having a job means plenty of free time which “simply must be managed, darling”. Whether this is lunch at the club, high tea, shopping or attending galas for the latest cause, it is nearly impossible for one person to shoulder that much planning without the specialized training that an eight week butler course offers. In exchange for this extensive and specialized training, butlers are offered a six-figure salary and the opportunity to live where they work by way of a room in the vast estate. Often this is augmented by keys to the wine cellar and the head of the household looking the other way when Jeeves smuggles a full bodied cabernet back to his lonely living quarters.
Butlers’ duties do extend beyond scheduling the lives of their wealthy employers. In fact, the breadth of skills they display is impressive and may include cooking, cleaning, chauffeuring, valet services, secretarial work, event planning and personal shopping. While these qualities are important, the real reason that rich people love having a butler is because it is akin to achieving a Cub Scout badge for self-importance. A butler illustrates to friends, family and acquaintances that a rich person’s time is so valuable that nearly every household and personal task is beneath them. Hired help thus frees their time to focus on “high value” tasks like testing martinis at lunch or having their hair professionally blow-dried at ten o’clock each morning.
The question you should be asking yourself is how does this help you to make friends with rich people? As Yogi Berra once said, “when you come to a fork in the road, take it”; get to know a butler or become a butler! Kissing up to the butler is an art but when performed correctly you will secure social invitations to stately soirees. Becoming a butler is more time intensive but may lead to ingratiation and a lifelong association with the family; think Alfred and Bruce Wayne, Smithers and Veronica Lodge or Geoffrey and the Fresh Prince of Belair. Over time these gentlemen became as important to the family as Lassie was to Timmy. Be warned, as the butler you can never forget your place in the household as wearing a white tie to dinner rather than the hired help black will certainly mean ending your tenure with your tail between your legs but at least you will finally know when to use the small fork!
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Posted in Drink, Fashion & Accessories, Lifestyle, Luxury, Personal Services | Tagged batman, bruce wayne, butlers, comedy, funny, humor, servants, stuff rich people love, wealth | Leave a Comment »
October 29, 2009 by Chas Underwood III
#68 - Mounting Animals
Mounting Animals
Price: Losing Vegan Friends
Rich people love to mount animals. Please dislodge your mind from the gutter, if you gasped know that taxidermy is alive and well. Hunting has always been a favorite pastime of the wealthy and as long as there are automatic weapons, ammunition and animals obliviously wandering their natural habitat, they will be shot, stuffed and hung on a wall of similarly ferocious beasts. Back when Captain Caveman, the Flintstones and a young Larry King first roamed the earth, hunting was a necessary and effective means to feed the tribe. Centuries later it evolved into feeding one’s ego. For the rich, a room full of hunting trophies is a sign that a man’s man is among you. In such a setting, the scent of rich leather, mahogany and testosterone is intended to impress the toughest of men and seduce the most virtuous of young vixens.
At the turn of the nineteenth century, these public displays of masculinity may have been enough to bring a young woman to her knees but today woman are more likely to hold a membership in Greenpeace than be green with envy over these feats of manhood. Nonetheless, lions and tigers and bears (oh my) continue to adorn the walnut paneled walls of estates the world over. The simple explanation, the rich are oblivious to shifting social norms and as such believe that donning a pith helmet to tag and bag a rhinoceros is all in a good day’s fun. Furthermore, their hunting junkets are a form of financial aid intended to prop up the local gin and tonic trade and keep the natives from getting restless.
Your distaste for this archaic tradition could still help you to score big. Social gatherings can prove the perfect arena to outwit your host, the cagey hunter. Examine your surroundings and determine if there is division in the crowd. If you are lucky, a beautiful heiress is in your midst looking for a distraction from the cookie cutter guests. The trophy room can act as the ideal conversation starter to distinguish you from the “yes men” attentively listening to epic tales about Serengeti safaris. Mentioning that a skilled taxidermist can make a squirrel look threatening to the young gazelle could prove the difference between an evening among old men with pipes and a romantic tour of her well-manicured garden. That said, do not let your guard down in this setting, you never know when a cougar is in your midst…pad, pad, pounce and it is lights out!
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Posted in Art, Leisure & Vacation, Luxury, Real Estate, Sport, Travel | Tagged comedy, funny, greenpeace, humor, hunting, safari, Serengeti, stuff rich people love, taxidermy, trophy room, wealth | 1 Comment »
October 26, 2009 by Chas Underwood III
#67 - Honorary Degrees
Honorary Degrees
Price: “Donations”
Honorary degrees are the academic equivalent of a blowjob after an expensive meal. In exchange for the celebrity and notoriety that a public visit brings to a university campus, the Dean will present framed parchment to the wealthy guest which is certainly more appropriate than dropping to their knees out of gratitude for the visit and the national media attention it brings. For the rich, honorary degrees represent bragging rights and provide the opportunity to showcase how far up the social ladder they have climbed.
Just as there is status and hierarchy associated with one’s alma mater, there is a pecking order among universities and their faculties which the wealthy instinctively know. This means that receiving an honorary doctorate in literature from Montana State University is a little like receiving the award for Miss Congeniality at the State Fair and doesn’t carry the same weight as an honorary doctorate of astrophysics from MIT. All the same, there are two schools of thought among the wealthy when amassing honorary accolades; accept only high quality, Ivy League honors or become an unapologetic degree whore. Naturally, if they are able to combine the two, they will have achieved the equivalent of walking on the moon.
Keep in mind, these pseudo-academic plaudits are an outstanding cornerstone for developing a relationship with the rich. Remember, rich people like to be doted upon so take advantage of their vanity. Compile a list of notable honorary recipients from impressive institutions then parlay this knowledge into a compliment regardless of how transparent your attempts at flattery are. For example, mention that Nelson Mandela, Al Gore and Quincy Jones have received honorary degrees so your rich friend is in good company. They will burst with pride at the comparisons and will be happy to engage in conversation. Importantly, do not under any circumstances ask about the size of donation they may have provided because despite the motto at Victoria University of Wellington, Sapientia magis auro desideranda, when it comes to honorary degrees, gold is actually preferable to wisdom!
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Posted in Fashion & Accessories | Tagged comedy, funny, honorary degrees, humor, stuff rich people like, stuff rich people love, university, wealthy | Leave a Comment »
October 19, 2009 by Chas Underwood III
#66 - Nannies
Nannies
Price: Bribing INS
“Hola”, “kamusta” and occasionally “Reespek mon” are important foreign phrases that every rich person knows. While foreign languages used by the rich tend to be more highbrow than the native tongues of Mexico, The Philippines and Jamaica respectively, the wealthy like to communicate with the nanny no matter how long she has been in the country. This isn’t to suggest that the nanny doesn’t speak English only that rich people will not learn this until their child’s third birthday. At this point house guests will be informed that young Chauncey Alistair Williams IV taught his nanny to speak American, he’s quite gifted after all. From this point onward, they will speak to the nanny in loud, slow English while nodding their head excessively to ensure that she understands what they say.
Occasionally you may encounter a middle class family with a nanny. These people are hypochondriacs and cannot fathom socializing their children in medical cesspools known as daycare; these people aren’t rich, they are crazy. To ensure that you know the difference between rich and crazy, look for two things. First, the middle class use a nanny as needed but rich people will have the nanny follow them everywhere and perform menial parental tasks like raising the child. These include feeding, changing diapers and holding the sleeping infant; nothing is more soothing to a trust fund baby than the sound of their nanny’s beating heart. If you still aren’t sure, ask the parent if they considered raising the child without a nanny. Rich people will instantly develop a look of horror and distaste similar to asking a WWII veteran if he would like to test drive a Volkswagen or share a slice of strudel.
Despite all the benefits of having a nanny, including being socially acceptable absentee parents, there are dangers in bringing a young female into the home. A young girl provides ample temptation for wandering-eyed husbands. Nannies represent a youthful, maternal figure that Freud could have written volumes about. As such, the help should be segregated to a wing of the estate not easily accessed by a philandering husband to ensure that rich people do not literally love the nanny. On the other hand, the man of the house should be wary if his wife agrees to an unusually well-proportioned Swedish au pair. This is a warning sign of entrapment and he should be on the lookout for sharks from top divorce firms. The safe money is on a Mary Poppins look alike. She will get the job done without going above and beyond the call of duty. This should ensure that the husband doesn’t try to feed the birds, if you know what I mean!
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Posted in Fashion & Accessories, Lifestyle, Luxury, Personal Services | Tagged comedy, funny, humor, mary poppins, nannies, nanny, parenting, stuff rich people love, wealth | 3 Comments »
October 15, 2009 by Chas Underwood III
#65 - Rehab
Rehab
Price: Potential Sunburn
A few months after grey became the new black, rehab became the new grey. The only thing more fashionable than checking into rehab is friends and family hosting an intervention before checking into rehab. This is the highest compliment that rich people can pay one another as it says they care, they want you to get better and that they will probably still spend time with you when you no longer drive exotic cars into the neighbor’s pool. While rehab has become an exclusive club for the wealthy, there is a danger for the uninformed of checking into the wrong clinic only to be ostracized after spending four long weeks listening to Melanie Griffith drone on about Antonio Banderas.
Just as there is a difference between golfing at Sebonac and playing mini putt in New Jersey, rich people prefer Malibu, Antigua and Australia when powdering one’s nose culminates in a 12 step program. I should point out that rich people don’t plan to end up in rehab but if a penchant for excess has gotten out of hand there’s no point in leaving it to Nurse Ratched to wean hard partiers off of sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll. Rehabilitation can take place in the lap of luxury where nearly every whim is satisfied. In fact, given that guests of the clinic are no longer supplying a kilo of coke for nightly parties hosted at their LA mansion, rehab can actually pay for itself.
More important than the high cost and the goal of sobriety are the potential friendships that clinics like Promises, Cirque Lodge and Crossroads provide. For the wealthy, a stint at a chic clinic in beautiful Malibu can mean an improved circle of friends and access to the A-List that may otherwise be unattainable. Granted, the new friends will be reasonably dull for the first few months but Kate Moss and Mary-Kate Olsen are rumored regulars at top clinics so it won’t be long before their mood improves. While rehab can be a great place to meet celebrities, it is recommended that business partnerships are formed elsewhere. It would be a pity if the seed money resulted in a relapse at Beat-rice in the West Village.
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Posted in Drink, Fashion & Accessories, Food & Drink, Leisure & Vacation, Lifestyle, Luxury, Personal Services | Tagged cirque lodge, comedy, drugs, funny, humor, passages, promises, rehab, sex, stuff rich people love | Leave a Comment »
