Blogs and Stories
The Bag Lady's Papers, Part III
Alexandra Penney—who lost her life savings in the Madoff scandal—takes a road trip to Florida to scrape together some cash. In the latest installment of her ongoing blog for The Daily Beast she confronts a brave new world of budget motels, hocking her jewelry, and the culinary genius of Popeye’s Chicken.
I’m in my dented white ’95 station wagon heading south to clear my mind of the Madoff debacle and to sell a very small trailer-size cottage in the funkier part of Florida. I need the money so I’ll have something to live on for the next few months.
Heading down the East Coast on I-95 is terrifically boring, so my mind begins to race with the same old scary thoughts. Was I greedy? No, I was conservative, really. I never wanted to strike it rich with Bernie Madoff. I just wanted financial stability. And I had lost money with other financial advisers, so I trusted an old and valued friend who told me about an investment—Madoff’s fund—that would yield a steady interest, allowing me to work on my art and not be dependent on my family.
As I drive, my outlook turns darker and blacker. What’s going to happen to me? How am I going to earn money? You’re going to lose your edge. You’ll get sick and disabled. You’re going to walk around in shreds, paper in the soles of your worn-out shoes. And—oh, my God! I just realized that with all with the bags and boxes packed into the back of the wagon, I’m already a Driving-Around Bag Lady!
I had a creepy phone call yesterday from a woman with an old-sounding voice: “I’ve heard of your problems and would like to buy your jewelry,” she said.
It’s clear I need to learn meditation ASAP, because I just don’t have the mental discipline to stop thinking obsessively about the future. I will check the Yellow Pages as soon as I reach Florida.
But here’s what’s worst of all: People are going to feel sorry for me. I can feel that pity right here in my gut, as the cars murderously swerve in front of me as I drive a safe, steady 65 on the right-hand lane.
I don’t want to feel like an object of pity, a damaged person who’s marked down like a “second.” This, I suddenly realize, is what a real bag lady must feel like: a person who has no standing in society, a sad, red-veined woman with broken yellow fingernails who trudges along with her ragged bags or pushing her rusty shopping cart with all her sad belongings. Where does she go to the bathroom? Where can she wash her hair? She has no place to call home, no place to cheer her.
No way is that going to happen to me! No effing way! I’ll keep up appearances, with my self-ironed white shirts and my self-applied nail polish. (I haven’t quite got the hang of doing my right hand yet, perfectionist that I always have been.) And I will keep up my spirits and my generosity and my belief in kindness until I can’t anymore, and my soul starts to shred and shrivel…and then it will be time to quit it all. But not yet. Not by a long shot!
I pass Cafe Risque in North Carolina. Great name! It’s a topless bar/sex shop/adult video place that offers “trucker showers.” My mind clamps on to the visual of trucker showers and I’m dying of curiosity to know what the place is like. What a great location for my blow-up doll photographs, but I pass it by, grateful for some mental relief.
)
I drive only a few miles above the speed limit because in the back of the wagon is a load of boxes and shopping bags with blow-up “sex dolls,” complete with wigs, clothes, and shoes purchased on major shopping sprees with my friend Alex. (The blow up dolls and their accessories are part of the subject matter of my most recent work—I just had a big show in Berlin this past April.)
If I get caught speeding with the dolls in my car, I’ll probably land in the local clink and be labeled as a perv. This kind of trouble is something I definitely don’t need right now.
My cargo also includes two bogus Hermès Birkins, a fake green Goyard bag, featherweight lookalike Rolexes, spangle-laden bras, and bikinis made of plastic pearls (yes, they exist!). No tab for loads of sexy dresses, bags, underwear, and jewelry has ever totaled more than $80. The jewelry alone, if it were real, would run to hundreds of thousands.
My fake gems and purses are all for my photographs. Don’t ask me where the idea of the sex dolls comes from. I’m the most non-kinky, heavily bourgeois (but you bloggers already know that!) kind of person. Yes, I did write sex books (How to Make Love to a Man), and they made good money, which I saved in an account with the M.F., aka Madoff, as I wrote about in my last entry here on The Beast.
The irony is that my artwork comments on the insatiable consumerism, greed, dishonesty, and the deformed and warped values of our time. The dolls, with their gaping mouths, are symbols or ciphers that provide a visual scaffolding for social observation. Nothing in the pictures is genuine—unless you consider plastic “genuine”—and neither, of course, was the M.F.
My mind snaps back to the M.F. I had a creepy voicemail message yesterday from a woman with an old-sounding voice who spoke in a very low tone. “I’ve heard of your problems and would like to buy your jewelry,” she said. Aaargh! She was after my real jewelry—mostly stuff my mother gave me. For all I know, she may be part of a new Madoff family plan.
It’s getting dark and I’ve got to find a place to sleep. Signs have been whizzing by with motels for $29.95 and $39.95 a night, which in my new circumstances I should stop at. My friend Tom, an inveterate New York-Florida driver, tells me that the finest hostelry on the route is a Hampton Inn. All the chains are immediately off I-95, so it’s easy to find one.
“Eighty-nine dollars,” says the nice lady at the desk when I ask for a room. I, who only buy retail—until now, of course—ask for a discount. She takes it down $10. Although it’s expensive and a splurge compared to what’s down the street, it isn’t in the same universe as the Ararat Park Hyatt in Moscow, where I was on a work project several months ago and the rate for a single room was $2,100 a night. Who in their right mind stays there but look-at-me-see-my-money oligarchs? I wonder if those Gazprom guys had money in Madoff. It was the most stunning price tag I have ever heard of. Actually, the most astonishing I could even conceive of. Magritte was certainly prescient when he made all those surreal paintings. The world seems like a bizarre replica of what it used to be.
I can’t believe the Hampton Inn. It’s my new Ritz-Carlton! The room is warm and comfy and inviting, with fluffy white duvet covers. There’s even a board with a pen handily tucked into a slot and you can rest a book or laptop on it.
The sink is real granite (!) and the towels are extra-heavy. The place is immaculate and breakfast is absolutely free! A sweet scent wafts down the hall and someone knocks on the door and offers freshly baked chocolate cookies. Can I be dreaming?
We are a fat and sugar-sopped country. Last night, before checking in, I went to Popeye’s, where giggling 4-year-olds are gulping down Coke from quart-size plastic cups. They eat the mashed potatoes and gravy with gusto. They gorge on biscuits that really are outta this world, but kids need protein and milk. The chicken is a bargain, $3.49 for two good-size pieces—50 cents extra for a drink—but mostly it’s left in the plastic basket. The parents don’t seem to protest.
Breakfast at the Hampton Inn is great: They have low-cal yogurt, fresh fruit, Special K. As I listen to the TV hosts jackhammering over the soft Southern accents of the guests, I appraise butts. They are large, larger, huge. (Mine is quite expansive, too, I must admit. I’ve spent a lifetime trying to control the spread, but it’s a combat that never ends.) These are nice folks who smile and say “hi” as they microwave the flour gravy to heap on the biscuits. The coffee in the large metal-spigoted urns is intelligently labeled “robust,” “regular,” and “decaf.” I take my first sip. The coffee is already sweetened! Jeeeee-zus!
I climb into the old wagon in another clean white T-shirt and get back on I-95. I have only 400 miles to go. I wish I could chauffeur myself right over the horizon to China. I want to drive for the rest of eternity so I won’t have to reach a destination and think about what has happened to me and what I’m going to do. The miles zip past; the dolls seem content in the back seat. (They are demurely dressed and stuffed into shiny shopping bags, soon to be tattered but reused in my new life.) But the sights are boring and my mind starts racing again.
I finally arrive in Florida. Although my little—but stylish—shack is on the wrong side of the tracks, I am going to Christmas lunch in the luxurious environs of Palm Beach, “the island,” as it is called by the locals. The invitation was mailed before I became a bag lady or, as I also am known, person of reduced circumstances (PoRC). Palm Beach was the prime hunting ground where the M.F. went snouting for his investor prey. People even joined the Palm Beach Country Club, where he hung out, so they could be “invited” to join his exclusive enterprise.
The party is in a ravishing house with a blue tiled pool and slim, tall, swaying palms. The exquisite food, prepared by the hosts’ personal chef, is seriously fabulous. The dining tables are laden with orchids and crystal and old, heavy silver. I spot several large Warhols, some Schnabels, Basquiats…for me a world of the past.
I’ve been to many glamorous parties, but this is my first in my new non-status as a PoRC. What should I wear? White shirt, of course, white jeans—I hope they look more like regular pants—and discreet pearl earrings that I hope I don’t have to sell. I decide to explain to my hosts that I just didn’t have time to shop for a gift.
I have fun! I’m having a great time! The very soignée and beautiful hostess, a dear and empathetic friend, is just the same as ever to me. She says it must be horrible to go through this as I accept a glass of Champagne, the first drink I’ve had since it happened. I sit next to a man who’s been Madoff’d, but not for much money.
Money is sooo relative. For him, a couple of mil may be not a big deal. But to someone like me, whose life savings are gone, it’s beyond a mega-fortune.
I’m sitting to the right of the host, a guy who is just plain fabulous and who is so wholeheartedly generous that I am really overwhelmed.
I watch myself carefully. I really don’t seem to have changed that much. I talk, I laugh, I listen, I tell a tale or two about my new life and I admit some of my fears, but basically I’m just me and broke and being with friends and having a good time on a golden Christmas Day. Until I wake up tomorrow.
Related:
The Bag Lady's Papers, Part I
The Bag Lady's Papers, Part II
Alexandra Penney is an artist, best-selling author, former editor-in-chief of Self magazine, and originator, with Evelyn Lauder, of the Pink Ribbon for breast cancer awareness. She had a one-person show at Galerie in Berlin in April and her work was shown at Miami’s Art Basel. She lives in New York, has one treasured son in Los Angeles and more amazing friends than could ever be imagined.
The Right Dumps Carrie
Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
Sarah Drops the Act
Tina Brown is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast. She is the author of the 2007 New York Times best seller The Diana Chronicles. Brown is the former editor of Tatler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Talk magazines and host of CNBC's Topic A with Tina Brown.
Palin's Gold Mine
Duff McDonald is a contributing editor at New York magazine and a former contributing editor at Condé Nast Portfolio. His book, Last Man Standing, about Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, was published by Simon & Schuster in October.
The Bag Lady Papers, Part VIII
Alexandra Penney is an artist, best-selling author, former editor-in-chief of Self magazine, and originator, with Evelyn Lauder, of the Pink Ribbon for breast cancer awareness. She had a one-person show at Galerie in Berlin in April and her work was shown at Miami’s Art Basel. She lives in New York, has one treasured son in Los Angeles and more amazing friends than could ever be imagined.
The Bag Lady Papers, Part VII
Alexandra Penney is an artist, best-selling author, former editor-in-chief of Self magazine, and originator, with Evelyn Lauder, of the Pink Ribbon for breast cancer awareness. She had a one-person show at Galerie in Berlin in April and her work was shown at Miami’s Art Basel. She lives in New York, has one treasured son in Los Angeles and more amazing friends than could ever be imagined.
Madoff Victim Alexandra Penney on His Guilty Plea
Alexandra Penney is an artist, best-selling author, former editor-in-chief of Self magazine, and originator, with Evelyn Lauder, of the Pink Ribbon for breast cancer awareness. She had a one-person show at Galerie in Berlin in April and her work was shown at Miami’s Art Basel. She lives in New York, has one treasured son in Los Angeles and more amazing friends than could ever be imagined.
Please, Tina, your readers deserve better than this! Every word Ms. Penney writes indites her rather than winning her fans. Ah, the wonders of the Hampton Inn! Who'd have thought one might sink so low as to stay in less than a five-star? And, yes, why suffer at a somewhat cheaper motel just in order to be able to give one's host at least a decent bottle of wine? One must have standards. Isn't traveling by car bad enough. And to go someplace in a station wagon! How plebian! I'm part of the urban world to which Ms. Penney belongs (yes, she would say "once" belonged). If I find her musings absurb, what must people living in small towns and supporting families, people who have been laid off, people for whom the Hampton Inn was always ta pretty nice place to stay if not a splurge, think of her? She doesn't have a clue. As for not having friends anymore, at least she you, helping her try to sell this trumped-up idea as a full-length book. It can't be long b efore she changes her last name to "Penny."
Irony indeed. Your artwork is a critique of the materialism and consumerism of our times, and your postings are a lament at having lost your access to high-end luxury items. Let's see if I understand, the poor and middle class are consumerist; the rich have refined taste?
The incessant hostility toward this woman is getting a bit tiring. If nothing else, she is conveying a story of a situation that is felt by many Americans that you would otherwise never be privy to. It's a story of humiliation, shame, and embarassment you are not likely to hear honestly about from many if any other former millionaires who lost everything and are suddenly middle-class or worse again. I can appreciate that. And is she doing it to try and regain some of her wealth in the form of a book? As in, writing to make her living? Uh, yes, writers have a tendency to do that. This makes them worthy of contempt now?
Alexandra Penney's lack of insight is stunning. Does she actually think that telling her Palm Beach hostess that she "just didn't have time to shop for a gift" is preferable to telling the truth? And at the same time she is pouring out all her self out on these pages? Does she actually think your basic working person feels sorry for her now that she may not be able to pursue her "art" with blow-up dolls? Oh, no, she may actually have to get a job! Oh, no, she's too old! Oh, this is heartbreaking!
And I am devouring it like a person watching a train wreck. A big dose of schadenfreude, and I'm not proud of feeling this, because I consider myself to be a compassionate person. I'm absolutely fascinated by both what she is writing and my own response. I am aware that this entire scenario is totally insignificant in the great scheme of things. And yet I hope we will be able to read next about a further insult to Alexandra Penney's sensibility - the $29 or $39 motel on I-95! Tragic! More, please!
It's a great story... the woman can write!!!
I think this is fascinating to read. Like her or not, she's writing about what's happening to her, not making it up for sympathy - in fact I don't think she wants sympathy.
Alexandra - hang in there. Listen to the JK Rowling's acceptance speech at Harvard for a wee bit of inspiration on picking yourself up from being down.
Alexandra, your missives are decreasing in their usefulness as insight into your predicament. For all your PoRC, you still sound like a pig (sorry, I couldn't resist). There is s blithe tone that makes it near impossible to take anything you write seriously. That is probably due to the circumstances in which you live (lived?), where being blithe comes oh so naturally, or poor writing skills. Whatever.
What I am interested in are the blow up sex dolls, bejewled and suffocated in plastic wrap. Was that an unconscious foretelling of where you would eventually wind up? Now that would truly be surreal.
My sympathy for this woman is beginning to evaporate. Yes what happened to her is a crime and it should not have happened to anybody. I'm sorry for you and I hope you recover from your financial misfortune. But you have no understanding what you may refer to as the common man. I've never eaten at a Popeye's, but I've eaten at McDonald's many times. I recently had the pleasure of a visit with my grandson. He stayed several months while his parents made plans to move to Texas. Every Thursday we went to McDonalds for dinner. Sure it is not the best food on earth, but we had 6 other days during the week to eat healthy. He loved eating his nuggets then going to the indoor playground where he made a new friend everyday. For me it was the best day of the week. He's in Texas now where he should be and I miss him terribly, but to quote Bogart, "We'll always have McDonald's" Okay, it's not an exact quote, but you know what I mean. And your right, this grandparent didn't protest. I wish you the best.
Ms. Penney is a writer, a very good one, and she's telling HER story, HER way. We can't understand the fix she finds herself in now if we aren't told about her past life. We can't feel her despair unless we know how secure and relatively happy she was before the Madoff debacle. I don't understand why so many folks here seem to resent her for having once been well-off. In fact, I've never really understood the un-American hatred of the rich. Isn't achieving wealth and success supposed to be part of the American Dream? If you do it yourself and don't injure others on your way up the ladder, brava! Even if you inherit your wealth, you don't deserve to be hated for your good fortune. You do, I think, have an obligation to use that money wisely and try to help those less fortunate. It sounds, from her bio, that Ms. Penney had been doing just that before Madoff made off with her nest egg. Keep writing, Ms. Penney. I and many others are enjoying your work, and we wish you well.
Ahh Ms Penney now you're getting in the groove - bling means nothing. Everything should be evaluated for what it is not the label or number of stars. But manage the biscuits -remember you want to keep your health.
You're successful so you know very well the likes and venom of humans like Extessa so let them blow...
I, for one, am enjoying reading about Ms. Penney's plight. No, I wouldn't wish what happened to her on anyone but I think her journey down to normality is an eye opener. She needs to stop being so negative and yes, she'll eventually get the hang of being able to self paint her nails.
I'm not going to read this crap anymore! This woman saw dollar signs and apparently had most of her eggs in one basket. This comparing herself to a bag lady is just complete bullshit. Poor people can't take road trips, eat at popeyes or even stay at five dollar a night hotels. Get over it stop your bullshit whining and be grateful for what u have b/c it's still more than a real bag lady.
I would keep the "shack" and sell the digs in the city.
Ms. Penney's articles and the comments they generate are both boring. We get it, she lost 'everything' and has to live like a real middle class person, the ennui. Why has this gone beyond one article?
I haven't lost everything, but I still like Popeyes chicken.
Oh, no. Again this woman regales us with her self-obsession, her epic self-pity, her pathological lack of perspective on real human suffering.... and all as if she has something original, or merely thoughtful, to offer. Somewhere, Tina Brown is giddy with giddiness. No doubt Ms. Penney was encouraged to share her experience as if it were actually important. What cynicism on the part of Daily Beast, and what a twisted coup.
Ms. Penney. When you wrote your first "episode", one could sympathize (barely) because you had just experienced the blow, and were clearly still in shock. Perhaps some real perspective on things would return to you, one hoped. But now, almost a month later, your self-delusion has ossified, and you have the astounding gall to compare yourself to a real bag-woman, veins and sorrow and fear included. How DARE you.
How dare you.
And one more thing. As you style yourself a writer, and no doubt harbor thoughts about exploiting your setback in literary form, you might look after basic elements of style more than is apparent in these confused essays. An editor would blanch.
So long, Daily Beast... this is just pathetic on every level.
We are so much more than our money. Ms. Penney has good health, a family, an education, and many talents. Corny as it sounds, those are the things that really matter in life. With everything she has going for her, she will survive. I wish her well.
Alexandra,
You need to stay in a Motel 6 or a Rodeway Inn, or better yet a no name motel with a free breakfast (Use a coupon book, they are free at the rest stops). Instead of surveying people's asses, why don't you attempt to speak to these people and maybe get to know a little bit about them and their thoughts, dreams, and fears. You should have stopped at the Cafe Risque and seen what real living 'Blow Up Dolls" are like. I am sure they would have let you shoot pics after closing, if they close.
You aren't anywhere near a bag lady yet. You have only dropped down to middle class. You have so much farther to go.
I think it's untrue when she says she was conservative about her investing with Madoff.
For one thing, it is not conservative to invest your entire savings in one place. Common sense would tell a person not to do so, as would any financial advisor worth his or her salt.
Second, from what I've read, Madoff's returns were unrealistic and "too good to be true", so people investing with him did so because they say high numbers, not safety.
I feel badly for this woman as I would anyone who had lost their life savings, but there is a disconnect here in her thinking. She takes no responsibility for making an unwise decision (investing everything in one place), nor does she seem to understand that investing in the stock market has always been a risk and a gamble (the fraud of Madoff notwithstanding), and while she is a victim, she seems to be milking it when in fact there are people out there who've always had nothing and don't have a son in Beverly Hills to offer a guest house to them to live in.
This is a strange tale. She seems to still not get that most people live as she is now. And most of them work hard too, they just never get the reward and opportunities she had.
Seriously, people- why are you so bothered by this woman? I don't think some of you even read what she writes. If it pisses you off that much, don't read it! My God, she has forty white shirts and a housekeeper. Off with her head!! I think there are a lot bigger problems in this country than self made women who live better than the rest of us. I don't think these articles are about money at all. It's about the fear of not having control of your life, the disappointment of having a lifetimes work pissed down the drain by a greedy heartless MF and not being able to do a damn thing about it (and having to see his face all over the media, an extra turn of the knife). I'm sorry that you find it necessary to expend so much energy hating people.
Ms. Penney and Ms. Brown, if you're going to do this sort of thing, really do it and go over the top. Ms. Penney, can you try being a bit more "Samantha Jones" for us? You walk a line between reality and absurdity, but a 100% commitment to absurdity will be much more humorous. Otherwise, it's all drivel.
I love the irony of the artist, who in her work comments on consumerism and greed, blogging about how devastating the loss of money can be.
Dear Alexandra -
You are not alone - many of us (myself included) have been financially devastated this past year. Survival will happen. You will come out of it a different person, to be sure, but a wonderful one nonetheless.
Don't acknowledge the negatives - people, situations, comments. Negative energy is a waste of energy.
Reading your blog is positive and optimistic and hopeful for me - please keep writing with the wit, self-deprecation and insight as you have the last few entries.
Julia
Arrete ! Arrete ! Arrete !
I enjoy reading Alexandra's stories and think that she is talented writer. I am sorry that the previous poster thinks that "this is pathetic on every level." Alexandra, I encourage you to continue to write about your experiences as a M.F. victim.
This shallow woman is just an example of the "ME" generation which came to the forefront during the Reagan years and is just now discovering how the other half lives. No doubt she is a Republican, which claims to be the party of "Values" and "Real Americans".Right.
Thank you.
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