Calculating the cost of pretension

To partially understand pretension, you could study the modus operandi of Ponzi schemers. The detailed construction of their financial image allows them immediate access to their marks. It’s important for them to duplicate the image of great wealth.

A quote the likes of “greed is good� dominates the mind-set of Ponzi victims. They’re primed to be ripped off. I’ve heard that quote spoken seriously in financial discussion on televised business news programs in the years that preceded this current recession.

That quote from the Michael Douglas “Wall Street� film has left Douglas puzzled by the fact that the villains of this 1980s film were later admired and quoted in the corrupt 1990s marketplace. It is no mere coincidence that the pirate Captain William Kidd once lived on Wall Street.

Con men recognize their victims for their pretentious nature as people eager to touch the cloth of Armani and the polished metal of Porsche. In response, the hustlers wear it and drive it: No con man ever appeared in a plain brown wrapper.

We fall prey to an image of wealth. It’s the Donald Trumping of American values, or what’s left of American values. We fall prey to schemers because of our own corruption, or (another famous quote): “You can’t cheat an honest man.�

American culture is money and the next best thing to having money is appearing to have money. But keeping up that appearance can be devastating. Pretension is not a discussion, it’s a physical act. Talk is cheap, but the camouflage of wealth is expensive.

“Recession sucks!� I saw that spray-painted on a garbage truck and yes, it sucks. It’s also a death knell for most pretension, as can be heard among the desperate whispered conversations at Manhattan’s most expensive restaurant, an über-costly food trough called Per Se. Dinner for two at five grand a pop is not unheard of, but the image of their clientele is disintegrating with the tremble of their stock portfolios.

A therapist friend of mine is treating some of the money- challenged married couples of this recession era. Whispering couples, arguing, discussing the restaurant menu in the Per Se dining room. A typical argument pits “prix fixe� against ordering “a la carte,� with the husband or the wife nudging each other, trying to cut some corners on the check.

The argument begs the question of why they’d dine so high on the AmEx hog in the first place? But they do have credit cards and it all goes back to too many  credit and loan offers in the mailbox. Just think of your letter carrier as a cross between Satan and Santa Claus. And be thankful if you weren’t hit with the hard-core case of extreme credit, aka the sub-prime situation.

The subject of Ron Perlman is an adequate closing note for this piece since his presence in the Hamptons in a house that could comfortably hold the Hindenburg is some of the cause of the outpouring of chic to the south shore.

Some years ago, my wife and I attended a Christmas dinner party of the National Cartoonists Society. We were seated at a table also occupied by a very nice guy named Al Lieber, who is the brother of Stan Lee (no relation). His brother, Stan, is the maestro who fathered a gold mine called Spider Man and Marvel Comix, and Al began to talk about the old days and the struggle of the comic book industry in the 1950s and early ’60s — hard times, no money.

Then he paused and smiled. “Now we go to parties with this Ron Perlman guy.�

Congratulations, Al, and you didn’t have to pretend that you could afford $300 for a bottle of vodka.

Bill Lee lives in New York City and Sharon, and has drawn cartoons for this newspaper, and many other publications of note, for decades.