Sleepless in NYC

New York City. The bright lights of a metropolis of money and power, promising success, but throwing temptations in the way of the unwary. This was the backdrop for another set of sleepless adventures.

It started with another friend's 40th birthday party. I am not going to talk much about this party, except that we had a bunch of people there, including his wife and parents. And I was jetlagged from eight cities in the previous five days. So it wasn't as wild as , although it started with box seats at the baseball playoff game, went through a late dinner in a private room, and didn't end until 4:30 AM with the hard core of six remaining partyers.

I rolled out of bed at 7:30 AM the next day for a breakfast meeting. The highlight of the day would be the arrival of a VIP from China, who hopefully is my ticket into the country of opportunity. He is a deeply-connected, Harvard-educated, nearly fifty-year-old Chinese man who had all the right credentials for my needs. He is the culmination of months of networking. I had corresponded with him over email, had many phone calls, and had a face to face with one of his people in the United States prior to this meeting.

In a couple of hours of meeting, "Lau" and I bond almost instantly. He is an intellectual, fun-loving guy, who loves to party. No doubt this would be trouble, but it was important for my business. And I'll undergo all kinds of hardship without complaint in the name of my business, willing to endure moral hazard, no sacrifice too large for my investors!

Our business introduction completed we go to a massage spa. Not a hanky panky place, but an incredibly competent Asian massage to relax, work out the kinks of jet travel, and to refresh. I nearly fall asleep during my massage, the three hours of sleep, you see, but then I catch a second wind. We are out by early evening.

Dinner is at Masa, the jewel of NYC sushi. Stratospherically priced, but divine preparations. This isn't the ostentatiously creative pseudo-sushi found at Nobu. This is the pure unadulterated stuff. The owner directly serves all the customers himself with an omakase he has prepared for that day, knowing exactly who is coming. There are no walk ons or last-minute reservations at Masa's. That night there are seven fellow diners. The omakase is the best I have ever had, paired with a killer sake. The bill is eye-popping.

Lau is interested in going to Scores, whose reputation has spread to China. So I make arrangements with the manager "Peter". I have never been to Scores, believe it or not. So I plan a tour for the two of us: a little time in the main dance area, then to the VIP room, and perhaps then to the private room. The manager is very accomodating, getting a whiff of Asian high rollers, the backbone of all overpriced luxury businesses.

Since I am mostly there for Lau, I make sure HE has a good time. Eventually he spots a brunette named Faye with hands-down the most perfect body in the room. It is an incredible body, lithe and lean, all natural, with perhaps the most perfect and completely natural breasts I have ever seen. Her face is also pretty, but not at the level of her body. She is 26, has a degree in education, and a bit uncertain about her future direction. Lau REALLY likes her. We trade off buying dances for each other, but he's pretty much sticking with her while I'm getting dances from other gals who happen to pass by. He stays ahead by a ratio of about three to one.

Faye won't do the private rooms, but Lau is charming her. Her resolve is weakening. During a pause where she has to go up to dance, I tell Lau that if he can persuade her, I'll arrange the private room. I beckon Peter over, who is hovering over us like a concerned mother hen, and he is happy to execute my wishes. The private room, I am informed, is $1500 and the girls are $400 per hour. We haggle over the price, he drops it significantly, and shortly the deal is done.

Faye is back. But she is distraught. She has lost her money, which was folded over in her shoe strap. She goes to look for it. Lau helps. In the end she does find it, but not before Lau offers to make up the amount to her if she doesn't. She's favorably impressed with his chivalry, and, probably, his Armani suit and nearly infinite bankroll of one hundred dollar bills.

She agrees to accompany him to the private room.

And then I am alone.

But not for long. A beautiful young blonde comes over. I haven't seen her around so far. She tells me that Peter sent her to me. Her name is Angela, and she has a thousand volt smile, pretty eyes, and a very friendly attitude. I can't resist the temptation, so I take a dance.

She is from Alaska. She is attending Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC, where she graduates next year. She travels extensively, often on her own. We compare notes because, frankly, I think she's bullshitting me. But indeed, she has been to New Orleans for jazz (which she prefers over Mardi Gras), hiked Copper Canyon, beached in Bali, hung out in Jakarta, partied in Tokyo, and had numerous other experiences in Australia, South Africa, Europe, and the Eastern Bloc. She is truly exceptionally well travelled. And she digs Asians. We talk a lot. More than she dances for me. I'm sure she's losing money this way, but she seems to be having fun.

When Lau comes over, quite excited, he mentions that he wants my help persuading Faye to visit him in Tokyo (this saves the issue of obtaining a visa for China). I tell him he's on his own.

He succeeds and is extremely pleased. Watching this second hand is quite interesting. I wonder if I am that transparently pathetic in my interactions with attractive women!

(I'm writing this part over a month afterwards, so I'll tell you that the meeting never happens, although they apparently keep in email contact. But I'll be meeting him in China shortly, and he is returning to the US for followup with Faye.)

Super Achieving Young Women and the Obsolescence of Men

A few years ago The Atlantic published an article on education that noted, conventional wisdom aside, that girls were doing better at school than boys and, in fact, it was the boys that were being left behind. This was based on a set of national studies. A quiet and steady reversal of gender in the highest achievement categories has happened in the last decade. When I read this article, safely ensconced in the male-dominated corridors of power, I asked myself: could this be true?

After this year, I am no longer a doubter.

I personally met three outrageously smart young women. Women who are in their twenties, extremely attractive and sexy, socially well-balanced, highly accomplished, and as technically smart as anybody I've met. If they got together, these gals would be the Charlie's Angels of super nerds. They'd kick the asses of all male geeks on the planet, and if they couldn't dominate us with their sheer brilliance, they'd seduce us to our doom. And as they threw us into the eternal flaming pits of mediocrity, we'd be happy. (And this isn't even counting Paulina!)

I'm not kidding: after meeting these women, I recalled the common theory that the human species doesn't really need the male, or Y, chromosome any more, and I was afraid. Sure, without us, gals can't make more males (perhaps a blessing in disguise), but with only X chromosomes you can happily make females until the end of evolution. At best we're like a genetic free-loader, the chromosomal version of the chip-eating, beer-guzzling, television-glazed, couch potato; at worst we're a genetic viral plague.

So in theory those gals don't need us men for breeding, they don't need us for protection (we made them pepper spray, TASER, neutron bomb), they don't need us to buy them things (they can work themselves, obtain credit, use Amazon), and they don't need us for pleasure (think recreational drugs, media, and the Sybian).

The last fort we men have been valiantly defending: male GEEKS to make their life-improving devices or to program their learning remote control.

But now I've met the women who can do it themselves; women who can out-geek the geeks.

Shit! Just when male geeks were rising in power and influence, just when it seemed that being captain of the football team no longer got all the women, just when brains seemed to triumph over brawn in the course of human events... well, now it looks like the male geeks have arrived just in time to watch the doom of all men. It's almost enough for a male geek to despair, to consider throwing oneself off the Eiffel Tower, a fitting cenotaph to obsolete technical achievement.

So there I was, depressed, planning my trip to the Champs de Mars, when suddenly it came to me: There is Another Way. A waning opportunity, but a Last Hope for men everywhere:

We male geeks must mate with these superwomen.

Yes! We must seize and exploit the only weaknesses they have: their genetically-programmed desire to mate with genetically attractive men, their youthful inexperience and desire to exercise their power, and their youthful hormones. Men of wealth, power, and education must seduce them. Men who are providers even beyond what they can provide for themselves. Leaders. Mentors. Older men. Successful men. Smart men.

I sat up straighter in my chair. I would bravely volunteer to do this task. Yes, I, Sigmund Fuller, future savior of mankind!

So let's look at the dossiers:

JILL MONROE

I heard of "Jill Monroe" in a strange way. I was in an adversarial negotiation with a large multinational. We were at the stage of playing "friendly shark", where we circle around each other smiling, showing our teeth, and snacking on nearby smaller fish. At a dinner we start trying to one-up each other on conversation. I bring up recruiting, and how many smart people we have hired. My counterpart rises to the task and starts talking about this amazing girl they've been trying to recruit for two years, all the resources they've spent recruiting her:

Jill is twenty two, originally from Estonia where she won first prize in the eastern European pan-national scholastic high school competition in an unprecedented three different technical subjects and second prize in another. Then she went to Cal Tech graduating at the top of her class, won several national awards, and had just started at Harvard taking a PhD and a law degree at the same time. My counter-shark had even sent a team to Estonia to woo the family, and he said that she was going to sign up for an internship.

I couldn't resist, especially after he mentioned that her sister was a model and television celebrity. I had to meet her. And so I did, on her campus at a coffee shop.

And after our first three hour meeting, she signed up as an intern. My counterpart was livid, of course, but it was sweet justice, especially since that deal fell through.

Jill was very attractive. She was a willowy girl, with a body style that matched her passion as an amateur dance instructor. Her bared midriff, loose blouses, tight pants and short skirts drove the men at the company crazy. And yet the women in the office liked her because she was sweet, and smart as hell. She was a hard worker, took direction well, and absorbed knowledge and skill like a sponge. Within two weeks she was doing the jobs of three full time people at 20% of a single person's pay. She was a one-woman India outsourcing outfit. And mostly alone in town...

KELLY GARRETT

I met "Kelly Garrett" while advising a Global Fortune 500 Asian company where she is the youngest senior executive in their history. She gave me a highly technical presentation with a senior scientist nearly three times her age. I was so distracted by her sexy but innocent presentation style that I had to force myself to stare at my notes.

Jill is twenty-eight years old, raised in Asia, and received her PhD at CalTech at the age of twenty-four. At the lunch following the presentation I found out that her father, a successful executive, was the next-door neighbor of a former business associate, and I had spend several nights next door to her, although she was probably in high school at the time.

She had published several papers and worked on a startup in Asia. She is nationally famous in her country and is a national government advisor, among other things. She is fiercely private and eschews media attention, yet she is very cute. Short hair slightly unkempt as befits a geek, great poise and posture, medium height, a lean tennis player body, a killer smile, and a very sexy innocence matched with a brain like a supercomputer.

Of course, succeeding in Asia as a woman isn't that easy. So I had to spend some one on one time learning from her. She was slightly shy initially, but an awesomely technical woman with a great head for business strategy. A little uncomfortable teaching me at first, but we hit it off well, and soon she was opening up and asking for all kinds of advice. An open dinner invitation and I'm all set.

SABRINA DUNCAN

When I met "Sabrina Duncan" she was the CEO of her startup at the ripe age of twenty six, having ousted the previous 50 year-old CEO she had hired. She was in a top medical school after having received her masters degree in biophysics at the age of twenty three from Yale. Her father was extremely wealthy, but she had done it all without daddy's money.

I was asked to advise the company by a Fortune 100 CEO, who told me that she was somebody I should meet. Sabrina was entrepreneurial, full of fire, and exceedingly charming, not to mention attractive with her long, dark raven hair, wide eyes, and a proud Roman figure. She stood out in a crowd at six feet in height, nearly two-thirds of which was leg.

Sharp, smart, and taking no guff, she had driven her company through financings, hiring, firing, product development, and first sales, while at the same time she was attending medical school. She needed less than six hours of sleep per night to be fully functional, and was clearly putting those extra waking hours to use.

Our first meeting went exceedingly well. She was a copious emailer, which was convenient for me, although a bit taxing to keep up with. She was a good social drinker, and I had a standing invitation for dinner and drinks.

THE MISSION

My mission, should I choose to accept it, was to seduce these superwomen. To demonstrate a vulnerability that could be man's Last Hope for survival. To be the Chink in their armor, since, after all, I am Asian…

Dinner invitations in hand, I was ready as I would ever be to represent man in this final battlefield...

(To be continued)

Membership has its privileges

I was in NYC with a friend from overseas who, once upon a time, lived in NYC. Let's call him Michael. He is presently within striking distance of being a billionaire. We had established a good connection over the years: probably similar forms of moral decay.

Michael told me about a service he used in NYC that he found acceptable, run by a mysterious man named Kevin. It sounded like a classic brothel arrangement, and I was prepared to be unimpressed. The power of the Internet allows women to be independent businesswomen with an ability to efficiently advertise, so statistics would seem favor higher quality among such independents than a discreet service limited by word of mouth.

Boy was I wrong.

Kevin had a Wall Street location in a building that he owns. Your car drops you off in front of an office building entrance, but in the lobby there is a side door. The path from the front door to the unmarked side door is not covered by the otherwise ubiquitous lobby security camera. You do through a short corridor with a large metal door at the end. That opens into a narrow hall with a camera and an elevator. Because of the drop off location, even your driver need not know where you are going. Or your driver can drop you off at Goldman Sachs and you can walk the block or two to Kevin's place.

The elevator is operated by a young long-haired lackey. You must have an appointment. You are taken up several floors where the elevator opens in the middle of an amazing condo. It is built as an open loft with several satellite rooms, an open kitchen and several closed living rooms, and is, by my rough guess, over 6000 square feet.

We are escorted into a living room in tasteful modern. It has a few comfortable chairs and a couch and a wall-sized entertainment system with a large flat screen and surround sound upon which light jazz is playing. The other walls are hung with original art, and tasteful bronzes decorate the tables. There are air fresheners and an extensive collection of cigars. It is a very nice place, and I am mentally calculating the monthly cost of all this.

Kevin sends girls into the living room in pairs (there are two of us), and gives them about five minutes to get acquainted with the customers. They are dressed sexy but not sluttish, showing off their best assets, and seem to be very friendly, genuine, and very attractive. I saw what I believe to be the finest looking African American girl I have ever met. Kevin says she is a recognizable international model (she is from London), and I believe it. There is a world mix, including several highly educated women: a PhD, a JD/MBA from Columbia, and a second-year medical student. All in all there are twelve women, out of a total group of thirty that occupy this loft in six hour shifts.

Life isn't shabby for them, either. They enjoy a spa, a weight and exercise room, a kitchen, a small library, and several private corners to study or watch movies (but there is no cable or satellite.) Their lifestyle is unhurried and friendly. They could make more money elsewhere or as independents. But they'd also have less camaraderie, support, and a lower-end clientele. One gal was mentioning that she used to be a high-end independent in London, and she liked Kevin's setup because although she had wealthy clients before, those clients weren't "classy".

Everything is relaxed. You can take your time deciding, have a few drinks, smoke cigars, talk, or kick back for a while. If you want to go out, Kevin has a limo and driver who can discreetly take you out the back way to wherever your heart desires, including a golf outing (at least two of his girls are near-scratch golf players). It's a very club-like atmosphere.

We spend a few hours at Kevin's.

Afterwards, Kevin smokes some cigars with us, talking about the business, the girls, some old girls that my friend remembers, and his new business ideas. He is an interesting entrepreneur. He has a very matter-of-fact view on his business and the girls in it, an attitude that the girls seem to appreciate. He says, "If a girl wants to bullshit herself into thinking she isn't a prostitute just because I've got her meeting rich folks like you, then she isn't going to work out. She has to be honest with herself, and enjoy what she's doing." He has a number of other maxims that he has developed in his 25 years in the business.

He has some other interesting business ideas. He solicits some advice, which he notes meticulously. I was predisposed not to like him, but I do like him. Kevin takes a few minutes with my friend on the side; then he comes back and offers me a membership.

To become a member you must have a strong referral, a face to face with Kevin, and an okay from your first girl. After that you are given a code, a password, a card bearing the name of a construction form with a phone number and a misspelling, and a series of questions and answers. You are also asked to describe something you know. Out of this data Kevin builds his security system:

1. If a spouse finds the card and is suspicious, and copies down the number, he can use the misspelling to determine if she has the real card in hand.

2. If the person is claiming to be the member, he uses the descriptions to verify that you are the same person.

3. Any two of the series of questions and answers can be used to verify a reference for a friend.

Perhaps most interesting, Kevin never knows your real name or other data, and doesn't want to know it.

For your modest membership deposit, you can use a living room in his apartment to relax, have a cigar, listen to music or watch a movie, or take a chauffeured trip to an event or restaurant, all optionally in the company of beautiful women. You can have him bring women over to your place, or arrange an event with catering.

I am torn: will I really use a membership like this? Probably not, but it is interesting imagining all the people who do. Clearly, membership has its privileges.

Build to Order Dates

Here's an interesting link sent to me: Girls in the Scenery.

This is a place that creates a customized date for hours to weeks in duration. A rigorous interview specifies what physical, emotional, cultural, and other characteristics you want in your date, and they find an appropriate "actor" and props that will fulfill the specifications.

It's build-to-order short-term relationships.

And as long as we're discussing a customized partner who is faking it to your specifications, how about going all the way along that spectrum to a Real Doll? If you prefer your women "not too smart," well, this is the way to go. You can specify face, hair, hands, feet, body type, height, bust, eye color, and, uh, other body features to your liking. They even have an on-line electronic configurator to see the results of your choices. Even tanlines and, yep, a shemale version are available. And all for about the cost of a one or two day jaunt with a high-priced escort. Read the site, but beware, it gets pretty creepy.

If only Dell knew what he was starting...