FYI, in addition to hating these newfangled automatic flushers, the PIMCO founder will cut a bitch for speaking and/or audibly breathing on the floor. Continue reading »
toilets
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Communiqués
What Does Bill Gross Think About On The Can? He’s Happy You Asked
By Bess Levin
Whether or not you wanted to know, the PIMCO founder has chosen to devote the first half (that’s 512 words) of August’s Outlook to the matter. Specifically, the indignity of the automatic flush. In related news, perhaps this would be a good time for PIMCO investors to start considering finding another person to manage their bond investments? Take it away, Bill:
I write this month to condemn the inventor of the electronic “seeing eye” toilet. Yes, that’s right, I’m talking toilets here, doo-doo-stuff, some of which I hopefully won’t step in myself over the next few paragraphs. I know there must be more substantive and less objectionable topics to bring before you, but I have a sense that many of you joint me in spirit if not common experience and so I devote this month’s Outlook to another trivial snippet emphasizing our joint humanity and sense of loss due to the recent disappearance of the hand flusher.
I don’t know where it is located exactly, but there’s an electronic eye in the plumbing of public toilets these days that can sense when you get up and down (or is it down and up) and are finally finished with your “business,” if you get my drift. My doctor says a proctology exam is a necessary evil but cameras in toilets? Never having seen myself from this particular angle, it is particularly embarrassing to turn over the assignment to camera and in effect say, “Snap away– see anything that doesn’t look right?” I figure if there’s an eye in there, then there could also be a little voice that says, “Have a seat,” which of course I do, usually with much haste and a sense that I’d better get on with it before I attract a crowd.
From: Morgan Stanley
Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 2010 11:11 AM
To: Employees
Subject: Crisis Management Update – Low Water Pressure in Westchester Office
The Scatological Rumor Going Around RBS For Why They Lost Power On The Stamford Trading Floor
By Bess Levin
I mean…
“Trading floor over here lost power temporarily (I think computers and phones only) for about ten minutes. Rumor is someone clogged a toilet on 7th floor and it leaked into some communications closet on 6th floor (trading). They haven’t confirmed but that seems to be the persistent belief.”
If only CNBC were broadcasting from there live today, Steve Liesman could confirm! (And maybe lend a hand. I don’t know why, but SL seems like a guy who travels with his own plunger.)
I’m trying to figure out if that’s the logic here? As Goldman prepares to move into its new headquarters, the Observer‘s Max Abelson looks back on the history of 85 Broad. This is what former managing director George Doty had to say of the place:
Even the toilets were placed just so. “When we set up an enormous trading room, we deliberately built it on one floor and had only one men’s room,” Mr. Doty told the writer Charles D. Ellis. Besides the excellent egalitarianism, he explained, having just one bathroom made it easier to hear rumors, “to be persistently diligent on small troubles.”
Someone tried to explain it to me that “the idea is that the important fellas like Doty would normally have their own bathroom, but instead they would hang with the plebeians and listen in.” Is that it? They pissed in the same trough so they could find out who was banging whose secretary? Otherwise I got nothing.
Trouble in hedge fund land. Greenwich residents are terrified that would-be new neighbor, Russian millionaire Valery Kogan, will make them look bad (read: poor) by building a proposed 54,000 square foot mansion with two wings, “extensive” subterranean space, and room for up to 300 guests, which will clearly dwarf their own homes, relative shacks compared to the behemoth.
Though they claim their protests are merely matters of (a) taste (“`It looks like they want to duplicate the Winter Palace here in Greenwich,” said Leslie McElwreath. “It’ll be an eyesore.”), (b) safety (“This is a road where our kids learn to ride bikes, rollerblade, and people take walks,” said Morris Sachs, a trader at Brevan Howard.) and (c) not being summarily drowned while taking part in a pissing contest (“This is going to be a palace on a postage stamp,” Charles Lee said. “It’s too much.”), those intimately familiar with the gastrointestinal habits of SAC Capital Founder Steve Cohen know better.
Though never stated outright, the real problem with Kogan’s house is that it is slated to contain 26 toilets. And though it has many, many WC’s, Steve Cohen’s home does not have 26. Were Kogan to start building without making some edits first, he would not only be embarrassing Cohen in his own domain, he would be breaking a law, which the residents quoted by Bloomberg are trying to uphold. Section 182, clause 17 of the Greenwich town code clearly states that “no home shall exceed the number of waste-removal stations as are found at Casa Cohen.”
Interestingly enough, Cohen, who is not cited in the article, is said to have zero problem with any other aspect of Kogan’s dream home. “He could build a domicile three times the size of Stevie’s, with 40 master bedrooms to Steve’s 2, 16 refrigerators to Steve’s 12, and 2 ice rink’s to Steve’s 1,” a friend of a friend of a friend told DealBreaker. “It’s the toilets he cares about. Just the toilets.”
Empathizing with the big guy, CNBC on-air editor Charlie Gasparino commented* that he “fully understands where Cohen’s coming from.” Pausing momentarily to enjoy a paper-thin slice of salami he’d cut moments earlier on the deli meat slicer he’d won in a bet with his local butcher, Gasparino added, “Bathrooms are extremely important to me. I live in a studio, but it’s got 4 cans. And I think that because so much of my identity is tied to my obsession with being ‘regular,’ I’d probably feel threatened if the guy next door had 5. I know it sounds crazy, but it’d be like I was less of a man or something.”
Anyway. This is a private matter that doesn’t really involve us, per se, and hopefully it’ll be resolved shortly. But obviously you’re all dying to know, “just how many toilets does Cohen’s house have?” We’re going to tell you, but not just yet. First, you’re going to guess. The first person to correctly get it will receive our heartfelt congratulations via email. But that’s not all. You’ll also receive two free tickets to a hockey game taking place at Cohen’s backyard rink. On June 6 the BG will taken on a team comprised of his young children’s friends and his least favorite SAC employees. The home team (SC) plays perched atop a Zamboni made from repurposed monster truck parts that gets to shoot out pucks at random, with a glassed-in Pope-mobile-like top in place of a mask. The away team (kids + staff) are issued Soviet-era gear, never win, and are forced to put on a Disney on Ice show of Cohen’s choosing following the game. Last year was Aladdin. This year is anyone’s guess.
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NH BLG_DEALBREAKER <GO>
to access Dealbreaker
