A Charity Event for People -- and for Pigs

Two nights, two benefits. I was supposedly doing good for this world by going to these things and giving money to charities. I feel disgust instead.

Oh, Thursday's night event was pretty good actually. Put on by a major newspaper, it was held at a club/bar in the 20s. There were people there from all walks of life, and everybody was amicable and cheerful. A big reason why was the way you were greeted when you got there. Two very pretty women with brains and without pretensions, smiling and chatting with you. Talking about "the cause", which in this case was the Red Cross. Frankly, I had a good time and met good people. See the italics below for my issues with charity.

Friday night, and one of my good buddies had invited to go to a 3rd annual charity formal at the high-falutin' "Boathouse" in Central Park. It was a black tie event, and just as I didn't have a suit when I got to NYC, I don't have a black tie outfit today. I do have a couple very nice black suits, and I went out yesterday after the market closed to a nice men's store, Rothman's, in my neighborhood and dropped five hundred bucks in total on an Egyptian cotton cuff-linked dress shirt (I didn't have a white dress shirt with cuff links), some new cufflinks (I only had one pair -- old NYC subway token cuff links -- that had been given to my by Andrew Lanyi in my first few months as his assistant when I'd worn a hand-me-down shirt someone else had given me with paper clips as cuff links at work one day -- hey, I was young and poor...and I digress), a formal black and silver diagonally stiped tie and a silver handkerchief (what a strange word). Anyway, I got all dressed up and looked quite formal.

We caught a cab uptown to 72nd where the Boat house is and joined the throngs of formal-wearing folk streaming into the Boathouse. My buddy's a pretty big hedge fund manager (he was wearing a brand new Zegna tux and stuff from Bergdorff, btw) and we'd been "upgraded to VVIP status" -- yeah, VERY very important people. Ironically, we had to stand in a long line with the other "lesser important" peeps, while the "junior ticket holders" streamed right in. Standing in line chatting with three ladies from Pfizer, I noted that the reason there's no line for the juniors is because anyone who's going to bother donating money and wearing a black tie is gonna pony up that last $75 to get VIP status.

Anyway, I don't do lines. I'll walk right out of a drugstore if there are more than two people in front of me when I'm ready to check out. But what could I do. I breathed deeply and tried to enjoy chatting with these three ladies and the dude behind us. But I couldn't get into the people. It' s not that they had nothing to say. But they just weren't really there. They didn't want to talk, they didn't like standing in line either, and they didn't ask anybody anything. Just telling us what they do for a living.

And the throngs of rich white people surrounding us didn't want to be there either. So the atmosphere was ugly and restless. And people were cutting. Somehow, from being in the middle of this long line, we ended up being the last -- the LAST -- five people with our public swimming pool wrist bands to go in.

And inside it was even worse. All these pretentious, fake, rude, disgusting white people looking and acting like they belonged at some mindless meat market fraternity formal that I'd rather die than go to, were mulling around bumping into each other, cutting in front of each other at the bar, at the buffet, at the dance floor -- I still can't get over how rude -- with undertones of violence -- the atmosphere was. What a bunch of pigs. All in the name of charity. Whatever. The only people who were nice to me at all were women who literally grabbed me as I'd walk by and demand to talk to me. One drunk grabbed me and then ran her fingers through my hair -- while her husband stood next to her in dismay. Pigs.

This is charity? Aside from the fact that I have seroius reservations about the concept of charity -- does it actually help except in the very short run? Does it undermine what would otherwise be self-sustaining virtuous productivity? -- this is not how money should be raised. Creating a meat market of a formal event for rich white upper East Siders and other New Yorkers to stand in lines to pound free vodka and wine is not a charitable event. It's a crock. And it left me feeling empty, depressed, and even angry.

That said, I am SO glad I went. I guess in some Taoist-type respect, I totally loved that experience. I loved seeing that environment full of those angry, detached people. Even as it makes me sad.