SATIRE | MONEY | FINANCE
YO, MONA LISA!
SHOW ME THE MONEY BIACH!
I was being crushed by our crumbling economy as the wheels of prosperity turned to misery. Then I stumbled upon the cure-all.
I can build a financial empire by going to museums with my cell phone and Merrill Lynch!
I have a ridiculously small stock portfolio. If my investments were in livestock, I’d have a hamburger. So when I saw everyone on TV making bank by hanging out with Merrill at museums, I went all in. I figured my portfolio would skyrocket while those at home investors drown in the naked abyss of today’s market.
I called my broker but learned he was already at the Louvre on vacation. Bingo! He’s my fiduciary, whatever that means. He only makes money when I make money (though I live in a pup tent in Poughkeepsie, and he lives in a high-rise in Manhattan)!
The New York Metropolitan Museum of Art edged out the National Mustard Museum in Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin, as my first stop. I went straight to Leutze’s Washington Crossing the Delaware. Flipped on my phone and waited under the watchful eyes of the man on the one-dollar bill. Nada! The Dow, S&P, and NASDAQ were taking a beating.
Shit! Let’s step it up. Madonna and Child, by some Italian guy, is the most valuable painting in the Met, purchased for $45 million in 2004. Ergo, I go and stand underneath it because I’m Italian too. I was hoping the Man Upstairs would bless my phone with a fortune.
No such heavenly luck. Both the Virgin Mary and the baby Jesus looked depressed, probably because their portfolios also turned to shit.
Flew to Florence’s Uffizi Gallery to stand under Michelangelo’s David — one big hunk (of marble)! I was in the right place, an iPhone paradise of investors everywhere. I asked a tourist/investor how his portfolio was doing. He told me to fuck off. He was trying to get a photo of his wife directly under David’s disproportionately small penis. (For a story about David’s penis visit https://medium.com/the-authentic-eclectic/big-bodies-small-penises-5fd39ba8963f.)
I always liked Don McLean’s Starry Starry Night (but not as much as American Pie). I flew to Amsterdam to check out the Van Gogh Museum. I thought if I stood next to the Starry painting, the stock market might soar into the twinkling sky to bring me limitless wealth. Kinda’ like a warp speed futurama market correction. Dammit! Starry was in New York on a well-deserved holiday. Looked at my phone anyway. I’m losing cash at the speed of light!
Turns out Vince’s painting symbolizes star travel by death! Screw impressionists (except for Jay Pharoah)!
Went to the Louvre to hook up with my broker. Da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi was on my list with a value of $450 mil. It was the most expensive painting ever sold by the Louvre. But it now resides in Abu Dhabi, a city named after Fred Flintstone!
With phone in hand, I started running from painting to painting waiting for that guaranteed reversal of fortune given to all museum visitors with a cell phone and portfolio.
I spied my broker near the Mona Lisa. Mona is tiny. I could barely see her. She was surrounded by like-minded investors throwing shade with their backs turned toward her. I sorta’ get that. Mona Lisa is not a babe.
Grabbed my broker by the arm “Hey Sackrider, what goes? “I’ve spent a fortune standing under the world’s most valuable paintings I don’t give a crap about! Now I’m broke! I should have gone to weddings instead!”
Suddenly, investors started stomping the shit out of their phones while plastering Mona Lisa with portfolios. They screamed as they smoldered and burst into flames. Then, just as suddenly, they sank slowly into the floor as if having suffered a stampede by a pack of crazed turtles. The market plunged! It was like Black Tuesday except it was Monday.
Sackrider cursed Mona Lisa: “You hosed me you fidooshbag! I trusted you and these fucking museums to produce results! My houses, cars, yachts, trophy wife, entitled kids, albino cobras, luxury ice cube trays, and everything else that factors into my online net worth are history! What do you have to say about that biach?”
Mona Lisa just smiled knowing her value was now $870 million, having just gone up $20 million.
Ciao tutti! Thanks for reading.
