Grubstakers - Episode 42: Dark Side of the Met feat. Veronica Coen

Episode Date: November 20, 2018

For this one we take a dive into the weird background of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art with retired security guard Veronika Cohen. We talk about the Met Gala, sleazy art investment, union busting, and Yogi yells about Ocean's 8 a bunch.

Hey everybody, welcome to Grubstakers. Today we're going to be talking about the largest museum in the United States and fourth largest in the world, the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And we're going to be talking about its seedy underbelly because just talking about paintings is a little boring. Also, Yogi will be reviewing Ocean's 8 and we'll talk about all the fun celebrity bullshit that goes on at the Met Gala. So buckle yourselves up because we're starting now. I think we disproportionately stop whites too much. I taught those kids lessons on product development and marketing, and they taught me what it was like growing up feeling targeted for your race.

I am proud to be gay. I am proud to be a Republican. You know I went to a tough school in Queens and they used to beat up the little Jewish boys. You know I love having the support of real billionaires. www.blowme.com Alright, I like that they applaud that. Yeah, oh yeah. It gets her at a pause break, that's how good it is. Alright, in 5, 4, 3, 2... Hello, welcome back to Grubstakers, the podcast about billionaires it is a snowy

slushy night here in brooklyn uh but people for the on this podcast are going away this weekend so we got to record tonight we've got a super birthday weekend we have to bring you this content because otherwise you'll listen to any one of the 1,800 other leftist podcasts that record in this city. But I'm Sean P. McCarthy here. I'm joined, as always, by my friends. Yogi Poliwog. Steve Jeffers. Andy Palmer.

And so this week we got a special episode for you, and it's specifically focused on the dark side of the Metropolitan Art Museum as well as just kind of like the billionaire, shady, money laundering aspect of the art world. And for that we're joined by a very special guest, a retired security officer and museum expert, Miss Veronica Cohen is here. Hello. This is Miss Cohen. And thank you for being here. And before we get into it, we'll kind of run through the history of the Metropolitan Museum and again, talk about how it relates to some of the other billionaires

we've talked about in the past. I did just want to like do a bit of housekeeping up front and we all do want to apologize for audio issues on the previous episode we had our guest Amy Therese doing a remote from Australia and this is our first time doing a remote interview and yes we could have asked any of the literally dozens of Brooklyn podcasters we know how to do a remote interview. But we much prefer to just... But we're better than them. But we prefer our strategy of just racially profiling Yogi Pali wall. Hey, the show's free, right?

Whatever complaints you have, you can stick it up your ass. And just making him do all the work. His dad made Excel. We're here to destroy Yogi's life, his relationship, his dreams. Oh, the white man ruins an Indian man's life once again. We're exploiting him economically. But if at any point you notice audio or other issues with the podcast, you can always tweet at GrubstakersPod,

and we promise we will all ask Yogi to do something about it. Sure. I might do something depending on my mood. That's really how I treat all tech problems addressed to grubstakerspod. But again, big thanks to our guest, Amy Therese. We hope you enjoyed the interview. In spite of the audio problems, we'll have them fixed next time we do any sort of remote

thing. Oh, and I was also- We might not. No guarantees. I was also going to apologize for opening our interview by calling Australia a backwards island. Wow. And then later

mocking the mass murder of Australian soldiers at Gallipoli on Veterans Day, no less. Oh, no, I was the one who mocked it, and I don't apologize. Well, I was going to say I was going to apologize, but actually the comments from our listeners in new zealand were very positive so i'll i actually stand by all of them i would like to issue the correction that australia is a forwards island oh oh and while we're apologizing i'm sorry i was sniffing on the episode two weeks two weeks ago

yeah i edited like two percent of sniffs i was like fuck there's still a ton of sniffs yeah way too many. But you know what? Look, these are growing pains. We've only been podcasting for seven years. We're going to figure this stuff out soon. Hey, we just figured out how to release nine months ago.

I mean, if you guys loved listening to sniffs, I'm sure you really love us talking about how you listen to sniffs. The podcast about podcasting. The meta podcast. Meta. I'm going through some meta podcasts. But without further ado.

I'm going to put my face on the knees. I pee. Without further ado, we're here to talk about the history of the Metropolitan Museum and kind of the dark side of that. And I did a little bit of research on the history of the Metropolitan Museum here in New York, if you haven't been. It used to be free. As of this year, they have instituted a $25 charge for out-of-state visitors. Yeah, if you have a New York license, you can get in still for free.

It's a suggested donation. But because of, you know, financial problems of their own making that we will get to, art is no longer free. But I did just, so I just kind of will run through the brief chronological history of the Met because it is pretty fascinating. And basically what happened was the Met was created in 1870 by an act of the New York State government. And interestingly enough,

there's a, another 1893 act, uh, to that original one that supplemented it and said, quote, the museum shall quote, shall be kept open and accessible to the public free of all charge throughout the year.

And this is a law in 1893 saying that it has to be, uh, free. They actually had to like go in and fuck with this to allow them to charge it's worth noting this year that uh in the law they define public as no irish i mean and it's pretty uh fascinating like early history um there was a a book on this uh written by michael gross called rogues gallery but he writes about how like essentially uh he says the metropolitan occupies state-owned building

a state-owned building sitting on public land has its heat and light part of the cost of its maintenance and security paid by uh you know new york city and he just kind of writes about even on the early days they just kind of treated this as their own little public fiefdom, like the rich people. Like apparently on the early days, it would close on Sundays, even though that was the only day working people in New York actually had enough to go to the Met, but the trustees would still open the Met for their private friends

and these kinds of things. And they've since phased that out, right? No, it's still open on Sunday. Yes. Yeah, I think they close on Mondays now after like some spat with New York, I think in the 70s. No, it's seven days. It was closed on Mondays. Oh, okay.

Seven days. Because of the rivalry with MoMA. Oh, really? Oh, that's an interesting thing going on too that we'll get into with Mr. Tom Campbell. The guy of the soups? Yeah, yeah. He's the soups, and he's also the art guy who fucks. Oh, well.

I thought they all fucked. Oh, right. Oh, no, but this guy really fucks. Really? Yeah. You know me. I'm always a fan of a guy that fucks. He is slinging that dick from Rembrandt to Jeff Koons.

Okay. I do like that they just opened on Mondays out of sheer spite that the MoMA has the better Van Gogh paintings. But so the story of how the Met got its original collection is pretty fascinating to me. And it's just like one of those fun little historical characters you find. There's this Italian guy named Luigi Palma di Sesnola, and it's like that name is just so Italian. It led to the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti. You just like, you say that name to a jury, and they will immediately put the first Italian

they see to death. The mob was like, you're laying on it a little heavy. It was not invented by a racist cartoonist at the turn of the century. It was an actual name of a Guinea kleptomaniac. But so Luigi Palma, he's the first director of the Metropolitan Museum. And essentially, the brief story of his biography is he's born in Sardinia in Italy. He's a soldier briefly. Then he comes to New York.

He marries a wealthy woman. He enlists in the U.S. Army for the U.S. Civil War, where he's a colonel in the Civil War. But even during the Civil War, he is reprimanded and accused of stealing contraband and sending it north i think like six remington pistols he stole and sent up north and stuff uh but he was a colonel in the civil war he actually won the medal of honor but after the war i will say for an italian american it you have the best out to be like yeah i can be racist i fought for the union i freed the slaves i can use that word no i didn't steal any pistols well couldn't have been me i don't even own a po box no i was just trying to save them from sherman's fire

they were they were in a building in at Atlanta, and they were going to be wiped out. But so I bring up his reputation for thievery, because the story of how the Met got its original collection is basically this. Using his connections, his wealthy wife, his, you know, civil war accomplishments, he was able to get appointed the U.S. consul to Cyprus from 1865 to 1877. During this time, the Ottoman Empire controls the island of Cyprus. And it's because of his experience in Italy, he like even wrote about that he knew how to deal with the Ottoman authorities. So what he does is from the entire time that he is the U.S.

consul in Cyprus, he engages in a ton of excavations, which are all through bribery, unauthorized, whatever, and ships over 30,000 priceless artifacts off the island. Apparently 5,000 more were lost at sea in transit

to the United States. And these were artifacts. These were artifacts. They date from 2500 BC to 300 AD. So again, like tons of Roman history, all these other ancient artifacts and monuments. Apparently, like some of them, he just like completely slap shot, put together.

And like a bunch of people questioned like the authenticity because he just like would grab shit and just throw it together. Listen, to get a painting, you gotta break a couple of people questioned the authenticity because he just would grab shit and just throw it together. Listen, to get a painting, you've got to break a couple of paintings. And so basically, the one thing that he did that people mentioned is honorable was he insisted that he would only sell the collection to one person. He could have theoretically made more money selling it all over the place.

But he sells his entire collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and again by collection. We mean entirely stolen Yeah, right from both the government and people of Cyprus to the point where they still like They've actually the government in Cyprus today has been like asked about this and it's a very contentious issue But like one of the presidents I think said something like oh, it's more prestigious to have these objects in the Met or whatever. But basically... The subtext being, we're Cyprus. What the fuck do we have to do about this? What a fucking chooch.

No, we like it being in New York. But I believe today there's still 600 items that were looted by this guy from Cyprus on display or in collection at the Metropolitan Museum. And then the one final great thing about this guy is, as I mentioned, he was a colonel in the U.S. Civil War. He was nominated to be a brigadier general, but the promotion was never approved by the Senate. But on his gravestone, it says he's a brigadier general. Hell yeah. So even in the grave, he's stealing valor.

Yeah. Wow. What a beautiful chooch. But that's, I mean, that's basically... Fucking respect the hustle. Yeah. And that's basically the story of how, like, the Met got its early collection.

As we mentioned, you know, sort of a playground for the rich. Sort of. Yes. A playground for the rich Guinea con men and valor thieves. But and then like from that point, you know, J.P. Morgan is like a really influential person at the turn of the century. He kind of gives the modern Met its he gives the Met its modern characteristics.

And I would love to do like a future episode on jp morgan again born to a rich banker uh heavily involved in the trust at the turn of the century he was the federal reserve before we had a federal reserve and people don't know this but the jp stands for jurassic park oh and then the other part so he uh jp morgan was president of the met from 1904 to 1913 he loaned or gave it like much of its collection and this was you know his so-called philanthropic giving but interestingly enough the entire uh he created the mets egypt exhibit and i watched like i think half of like some pro-met uh documentary and they just kind of brush over that like yeah he like sent these uh he he got the met

to start doing archaeological digs in egypt and then what's left unsaid is uh what happens after they do the archaeological dig and where the objects go so basically he got the the met it's egypt exhibit by stealing yeah all of these and you know interesting fact about the egypt exhibit is it is actually the world's oldest uh cocaine tray for lady gaga and then um but so jp morgan was the more on that later you're not wrong uh jp morgan was the president president of the Met until 1913, and then his son would attempt to overthrow FDR in a fascist coup. That was the business plot in the United States

where some leaders of business tried to recruit out-of-work veterans to institute a fascist government. Smedley Butler. Yeah, Smedley Butler. Spagma Butler I mean that happens all the time though Sean I don't know why you're pointing it out That's the common practice for businesses

He's like He walks into the The bust of Julius Caesar He's like You know if I just get enough veterans together This could be me But so and then He's like, you know, if I just get enough veterans together, this could be me. But so, and then the kind of, the only other kind of notable thing, or, well, not the only,

but the other notable thing I found was basically during the Great Depression, the Met was almost entirely kept afloat by John D. Rockefeller Jr. So it is just like something where, I guess, you know, I don't know all the details. I know like the Louvre in France receives a lot more public money than the Metropolitan Museum does. And, you know, it's kind of like whatever you want to call it, tradition history in the United States

where these museums kind of have to rely on wealthy benefactors to, you know, out of the goodness of their largest, provide culture for the rest of us. And as we've mentioned, in the case of the Met, this very much ended up being used as kind of a private hangout for the ultra-wealthy with a lot of public money going into it. Yeah, it seems like when rich people want to hoard,

they have spaces for their useless shit that they stole. It also feels like in France, it seems like when rich people want to hoard, they have spaces for their useless shit that they stole. It also feels like in France, a lot of the rich people just couldn't get ahead at a certain point. Oh, really?

Yeah. What was holding them back? The force of gravity. I think a slice of metal between their chin and their shoulders. That would do it. That would do it. French or not French, that would do it.

So that kind of brings us up to the present, the metropolitan. It's interesting, as we mentioned, this was created by an act of the New York State Legislature. Interestingly enough, there's a law in New York State that New York State- One of the last things they did. They went to sleep until they were like, oh, it's time to give Amazon $2 billion. But so one of the... There's a statute in New York that says the New York State government has oversight over charities and nonprofits and these sorts of things. So they actually do have statutory authority

to exercise a lot more control over the Met, but unsurprisingly, when you have a government that is giving $2 billion to the richest corporation on Earth, they tend to not aggressively utilize their oversight authorities. That's crazy, Sean. Right. You sure about that? But so even though the government does have oversight in New York State the the Metropolitan Collection it's owned by a private foundation of

about 950 individuals including 41 elected board members such as Anna Wintour who runs the Met Gala oh I know her from the movie Oceans 8 you You guys see that movie? Oceans 8 takes place at the Metropolitan Museum, so it's technically topical. That movie sucks! Was there a part in it where she screams at George Clooney that he won't be invited back if he's on his phone next year? Sean, Clooney's not even in Oceans 8. Oh, why would we have any of the original cast in this movie

that has the name Oceans in it? Do they have animatronic Bernie Mac in it? I would have loved that. No, they didn't do anything with it. It was a terrible movie. They had Awkwafina, who's from Queens, but when they introduce her, they're playing Notorious B.I.G. He's from Brooklyn. Did you do no research, Oceans 8?

It's a movie with zero compassion and zero chemistry on screen because they made a bullshit movie for bullshit people. Well, you know, instead of, they couldn't get Bernie Mac for obvious reasons, but they did get Steve Harvey, and he told all the women how to respect their men. And then he accidentally introduced the movie as Ocean 7. Well, Mrs. Cohen, would you say that the security in that movie was accurate? Did they have like lasers guarding all the diamonds?

No, we are not given any lasers. I did not see the movie. I was not present when it was taking place, this robbery. So it was an inside job and you were part of it? I cannot speak to that. Here are my favorite Amazon reviews on Ocean's 8. Profoundly bad.

Boring. Lifeless. I want my two hours back. A boring copycat nonetheless. Nonetheless! We all know what that means. Interestingly enough, I Want My Two Hours Back is also what people tell Anna Wintour after the

Met Gala. We did find articles about A-list celebs who have decided to not go to the Met Gala anymore. It's really hard to be personable for two hours and then dress up for it. You mean your like, you mean your job?

You mean that's the most difficult thing about your life? You know, ever since El Chapo got locked up, the coke at the Met Gala has just not been up to par. But did we want to talk about the Met Gala? Yeah, I guess we can talk about that now. Yeah, so from what I understand from what Ms. Cohen has told me is that, and you can speak on this, it's basically celebrities wear expensive clothes in front of cameras.

It's like an Oscars without Oscars. And then they go inside, get completely blitzed, and abuse the security staff. Particularly, I would say Nicki Minaj. Really? I think like, I read a New York Post story that Demi Lovato or whatever,

she was quoted. Can we say that in New York? Demi Lovato. Lovato. You're good. You're good. Just continue. Our listeners will love that.

I wish I could do one episode without doing this shit. But regardless, continue our listeners will love that i wish i could do one episode without doing this but uh regardless regardless of demi's last name uh she uh there's a new york post article i read about the the met gal it's the one uh yogi shared uh but it was basically uh she was quoted as saying that some celebrity was a huge bitch to her and then the next sentence in the new york post story was most people speculate this is about nikki minaj you're not wrong about that and then like the other thing from that story was i guess they were like smoking in the bathroom and people were complaining that these like i don't know four thousand year old artifacts were gonna smoke all over oh yeah what was it it? The Kardashians were smoking pot in front of, like, 1,000-year-old.

Yeah, there's a restroom in front of the facsimiles of all of the hieroglyphs from the Egyptian wing that were made in the 20s. And there are some sculptures outside of the restroom that are many thousands of years old. And they were all smoking the reefer in the bathroom. And we saw the smoke fumes come out we had it called the fire marshal it was a real it was a real problem that night did they did they post it to instagram or was that you know i don't know about oh okay but i believe

it was in the news and okay i saw it on entertainment tonight it was terrible i just like the idea of um somebody going right up to the mummy and being like, oh, cool, ashtray. The mouth opens and everything. That is one of the weirdest things about the Met is that there are mummies there. And it's like, oh, like, you know, they've got like art over the face where it's like a painting of the person's face and stuff. And's like oh that's good art for like you know 3 000 years old also there's a corpse in there and you're just supposed to be like oh interesting

yeah corpse it was the last person who displeased anna wintour um let's not get ageist sean slow moving flat characters love the actresses but so boring they forgot the drama and then when kayling and blanchett were mad that critics were like this movie sucks they're like oh most critics are white so i mean like you know they don't like women on on screens probably and uh the people that weren't white that were reviewing it were like, I'm not white, so maybe you didn't read all the fucking reviews, Kaling and fucking Blanchett, and hey, maybe if your movie's so good in diversity,

maybe give the characters that aren't white last names. How about that, huh? In the movie, all the characters that have last names are white, incidentally. This is a true fact. Rihanna's character is Nineball. Why? No reason. She opens up a pool hall at the end calling it Nineball, but Ball's not her last fucking name. incidentally this is a true fact uh rihanna's character is nine ball why no reason she opens up a pool hall at the end calling it nine ball but ball's not her last fucking name all i know

is that george clayton johnson is rolling over in his fucking grave also who plays nine ball rihanna every everyone just plays regular pool. I mean, nine ball's fine, but no one plays it. I really like nine ball. Yeah? I've only played it from Super Monkey Ball. Nine ball's amazing. It's very straightforward. There's no real rules except go in order of the balls.

Yeah. You're not asking the important question, though, which is what percentage of George Clooney's salary did the ladies make? Was it 76 on the dollar? I think so. I think so. But yeah, no, I mean, the Met Gala, I mean, it's just pretty fascinating to me.

Like you hear talk about it when it happens every year, and it just seems like Anna Wintour's little private show to, you know. Yeah, it used to be a charity. Right. At some point in the 50s, it started as like a charity, I think. I believe it was Miss Vreeland, also from Vogue, who she wanted to shore up the coffers for the Costume Institute, which didn't get very much money. Right, right. And at one point, we were able, the staff were able to participate in these parties.

We would pay $100. We would go. We would go all night. It was a party. They quickly corrected that error. Like, oh, oh, shit would go all night it was a party. They quickly corrected that error. They're like, oh, oh shit, we're treating the staff well. Oh, $100, we made $10,000. That is not in the spirit of the foundation of this museum. But yeah, like, so again, and

I only just know this from this New York Post article but so basically like, you have to spend like, I think $20,000 to $100,000 or even $200,000 to get like a ticket to the Met i think 20 to 100 or even 200 000 to get like a ticket to the met gala and even then it's all like subject to anna wintour's veto like if she doesn't like you it's like no even though you're like rich you can't come oh yeah it was like the kardashians got banned was it for the pot or it's because they're pure trash and then i can't disagree there well then kan Kanye forced them to let the Kardashians back in.

Yes, I remember this year. It was very embarrassing for all of us. I have to see her. He was, I believe, performing. And she was pregnant. And she looked like the upholstered version of a couch from the 40s. I remember this. I remember this. I remember this.

I remember this in the gossip racks. And we were all just ashamed that we had to let her in. And then Kanye had a two-hour conversation with a Monet painting. But he won. Were you there? Oh, my goodness. The accuracy.

He's like, yeah, I could be blurry, too. I mean, I never put my mind to it, but I'm pretty much a blurry painting in my soul. He's like, yeah, I could be blurry too. I mean, I never put my mind to it, but like, you know, I'm pretty much a blurry painting, like, you know, in my soul. Yo, I think this artist was just nearsighted. He's like calling people and he's like, hey, I figured it out.

Yo, you with the glasses, take them off. Doesn't this look perfect? I'm gonna let you finish, but I think Gauguin had the greatest impressionism of all time. But yeah, I mean,

that's kind of like the Met Gala. And again, this is like, it speaks to a larger societal problem with relying on rich people to provide their crumbs for charity,

where it's like, you know, ostensibly, this started as some sort of charitable event but it's just entirely turned into like a celebrity publicity machine a marketing event it's part of a conspiracy to ruin twitter for a day am i misremembering or did cardi b and nikki minaj fight at the met gala i think that's a different event a different event yeah but yeah anything else about the met gala? You were saying drug use.

Is that a copious thing? Yes. They usually go in. I mean, there used to be a post for the guards. We used to have to be in there to make sure they weren't snorting coke off of the floor. We wanted them to use it on the counter. And, you know, we're part of a union. So after many years of negotiations negotiations we got taken out of

the bathrooms so that's no longer a post do they have to post someone next to vigo the carpathian to make sure that my spirit doesn't just you know manifest out during the gala no that's also a labor violation. I just like the idea of some union security guard standing there watching somebody snark coke and being like, I'm on my union break. It's 20 minutes, okay? It's in my contract.

You can look it up. It's not my problem for another 15. Were you mentioning Lady gaga though is that i'm just wondering if you have any dirt like that i just expect i i mean do you do you want to go into the one you do know about of using coke in the bathroom i'm trying to remember the last person it was It was someone who was pre-Lady Gaga, but the same. Madonna, maybe. Yeah, you had a story about everyone was like, oh man, Madonna's doing coke in the bathroom. Oh, that's right.

No, so this was what happened in the Alexander McQueen party where Madonna decided she needed to use the restroom, but there were too many people using coke in the women's room, so she decided she was going to go to the men's bathroom too many people using Coke in the women's room, so she decided she was going to go to the men's bathroom. Wow, how progressive. Two Coke there. Yeah.

And one of my coworkers was trying to pursue her into the bathroom to get her to go out because, you know, we're very strict about gender, the binary, in 2011. Now it's a little more flexible. But back then, though, it was pretty serious. 2011, it was a very, very strict divide. Hard rules. And so she went into the men's room, and one of my co-workers tried to get her out,

and her bodyguards didn't want her to be harassed while she was in the restroom, naturally. And they were sharing selfies of her that she had taken of her twat oh sharing as in showing one another or texting one another text i i don't know what these kids do with their phones these days but apparently her vagina was out there and my co-worker is a very shy gay male. He was disgusted. But was it like a virgin? I doubt it very much. So, yeah, that's what happened that year in the bathroom.

Too much coke on one side, you know, too much muff on the other. I know. I mean, not only do you have a physical woman in there, but also a photo of a vagina in the menstrual. Very meta. Blasphemous. Do you want lines or a slit? I did not see it. Security is like telling her that coke is bad for her,

and she's like, Papa, don't preach. She's made up her mind. But I guess if there's nothing else in the Met Gala, we can talk a bit about kind of like why they are in a financial hole because that's an interesting story well first i want to kind of go into sort of what the met is uh for wealthy people because i've the this whole thing is is fairly interesting um it's essentially many of the artworks are at the met are on loan right and it it's often used as a way uh sort of the first order um there's sort of a lot of different levels to it and like kind of the first one is a bit of reputation washing um for instance the most uh obvious one is that uh david coke he's on the board at the Met.

He's put a lot of money into the Met. He has a fountain outside of the Met that's named after him. Oh, Koch Fountain? Yeah, yeah. Does the water in the fountain get more acidic every year? If you light a match to it, it goes on fire. Somebody goes by the David Koch fountain. They're like,

wasn't there fish here like 10 years ago? One of the reasons they banned smoking in the past. But yeah, the Sackler wing, we mentioned the Sackler family is the famous Purdue pharma opioid heroin epidemic family billionaires. So, you know, yeah, as Andy's mentioning, reputation laundering.

Yeah. Oh, and the best one, in my opinion, is they have a room with a bunch of suits of armor. And our old Elvin Hispanic friend, Michael Bloomberg, he gave a bunch of money to the Met and named that wing after his daughters. Oh. What? The Emma and Georgina Courtyard for something, something, something. Arms and Armour Courtyard. Arms and Armour Courtyard.

Yes. And he said it was like to protect his daughters like for besides the fact that that's creepy as hell like you know it's just in the message that i will always protect my daughters and when i'm gone it's also clear that it's like oh he it's it's also like his ideal society. Like, oh, feudalism. Yeah, right, right. The Michael Bloomberg. That seems like a move I'd pull as a parent if I like fucked up royally hard with my daughters. Ah, ah, I bought you a museum wig.

It's like the last ditch effort to retain. Find your love. Yeah, exactly. What's funny is like his daughters are probably like, yeah, whatever, Tad. Bloomberg's like, so do you have like a smaller suit of armor

maybe like four foot three or something but yes no it's good that Michael Bloomberg is able to use the money that he got being mayor and benefiting off his Wall Street connections

that he was selling terminals to, and then, of course, providing all these subsidies for Wall Street, protecting Wall Street, using the NYPD to bust up Occupy Wall Street, and just all of these ways that he protected the bottom line interests of Wall Street that was, of course, feeding all of his vast fortune through Bloomberg LLP and the Bloomberg terminals.

So it's nice that he's able to do that and protect his daughters. To protect his daughters. With all that definitely not ill-gotten money. From dragons and Islam. They're the same thing, Andy. Never forget it. Don't forget Vikings. So the kind of second level thing that I find the most interesting is uh that a lot of the stuff

that's on loan um has to do with art investing which is a big hobby of billionaires these days it's like it's apparently according to um this article in Magazine. I don't believe it. Art investing is a relatively... Not to be confused with the Me Too publication, Believe Her. That one's spelled with clap emojis. The Believer Magazine article points out that art investing

is a relatively recent phenomenon historically that actually kind of came with the rise of capitalism in the sense that in pre-capitalist societies most wealth went into land right now in capitalist societies there's much more kind of free cash moving around and so in order to like kind of give that cash a home people will often park it in paintings and so now if you like look up art investing online you'll see like 20 different articles where they're like a billionaire's uh guide to art investing and they're like pick one you like i bought this one that was worth 30 000 but i liked it and it grew to like a million or something you know it's like that um Now you say this cash is free.

No cage around it or nothing? Just to kind of like tag that, like there was a New York Times article I saw which talked about money laundering in the art world because that's the other aspect of it. Where like New York Times estimates there were about $63.8 billion worth of art sales in 2015. Wow. And it's kind of similar to like how you can essentially buy a luxury condo in say New York or Miami if you're trying to launder your money. Right, right. Like there was a case in this New York Times piece about like some Malaysian officials who like stole a bunch of public money and then bought like some multi-million dollar paintings from Sotheby's just as a way to launder that money yeah yeah and a part a big part of it is that like the auctions are oftentimes kept

anonymous right uh they don't reveal like there was a what was it a 500 da Vinci that um many people suspect might not be a real da Vinci because it involves a glass it's like Jesus holding a glass sphere but the light isn't deflected in the sphere and people suspect that Da Vinci would have known that, how it would have been deflected and tried to portray that so they think it's a fake. I was suspecting it wasn't real when you said it was $500. Oh, $500 million. Sorry.

I just also love, like, the only nerdiness that I see comparable to art historians are, like, sneaker heads. Like, it's the same level of like, no, no, those aren't Jordans. You see the lettering needs to be closer to the swoosh. You know, like it's the same type of mania.

But yeah, I was just going to say on the laundering front, this New York Times article is from 2017, but they talked about how like the US Treasury has started to implement steps to get rid of shell companies and anonymous buyers for luxury condos in New York City, Miami. So they're starting to implement these kinds of disclosure steps, but of course the art world hasn't done that yet. So to the point where a lot of times auction houses

don't even know who the seller is, much less the buyer doesn't know who the seller is. So it is like, because of the anonymityity it is a great way to launder money in addition to the investment perspective which Andy looked into a little more yeah it's it's also interesting because there are some artists who will just like who just come up immediately they they kind of grift their way out of art school and into the art investment market like that makes sense yeah there was there's this guy uh lucian smith who is uh he's actually younger than most of us he was born in 1989 and right out of art school he started selling

these paintings where he just kind of took the jackson pollock thing and was like it's about the process of it and so he he made what he called raindrop paintings which were just like a fire hose spraying paint on a canvas and then selling it for like ten thousand dollars or something and he would make like 30 of them and like at the end of one of the art investing articles um that i read i think um it was it was a relatively recent one. It was from like 2017. And they were like, yeah, you know, this guy Lucian Smith,

you know, sometimes you have to be careful because his stuff was selling, you know, three years ago, it was selling at about 50,000. But now his works are only worth 1,000. And then I found another article in the Village Voice where they just outright call him a fraud

for all the shit he does. And that one came out in like 2014. Like it lined up perfectly with their timeframe of all of his art losing value because like the preeminent cultural voice in New York just called it bullshit. Which it's also funny because like since then, a billionaire bought the Village Voice and shut it down.

And so like. Who's worthless now, Village Voice? Yeah. I like to think it was like the same guy who just like bought 20 of his artworks that became worthless after that article. It is like, what is too bad though, you know, like Andy, Yogi and I all do, do you know comedy or stand-up whereas like we should have just gone to the grift of like the art world oh yeah it's just like making shit to like sell to billionaires which you can't really do with comedy you can't be like you want to you want a nine millennial comedian dan inan yeah we could all be future guests of grubstakers we could be

posting selfies and private jets and pictures of us standing awkwardly next to a Tesla looking 80 years old and saying that we're 18 to the New York Times. Hey, some of us are planning on doing that anyway. I'm just imagining going up to a billionaire and being like, so do you want to invest in my question? Is anybody here on Tinder?

You know, one thing I unfortunately have to say say about dan nine and anytime he's brought up and someone mentions that terribly hacky uh mom japanese dad indian joke and it's the punchline of i get my sushi at 7-eleven no one ever says it incorrectly and i'm like god damn it like he might be the biggest hack, but that one joke, everyone fucking knows. So sad. I mean, it's perfectly constructed. You gotta hand him that. In the same vein of me respecting Nazis for freeways, I gotta say, day nine in a 7-Eleven sushi joke,

it does murder. It does murder. They also made some great tanks. And the first jet engine And the first ballistic missile I'm sorry, which of my podcasts am I on? Am I on the one I do anonymously? If we had producers, they'd be like, cut, cut the feet, cut

But I'm sorry, was there anything else in the yeah but enough about 1488 with john mccarthy uh so no well another another example of this is uh damien hurst who had uh he was famous for having a shark in the mat uh that was just sitting in formaldehyde which apparently uh was disgusting yeah Whenever it was summertime, it just smelled like the worst gas in the world. Really, Mark Cuban in formaldehyde?

What was it? It poisoned some of the guards from the formaldehyde fumes? People would get very faint, and they would have to take a lot of restroom breaks, and our managers didn't like that. They were just so emotional experiencing the art. Precisely.

Apparently, also, he calculated the formaldehyde wrong and the shark rotted. And he had to replace it for a buyer. Oh, my God. But also, another way money kind of gets laundered, he created a sculpture called For the Love of God, where he took a real human skull, encrusted it with 8,601 diamonds, and then sold it for, what was it, $100 million? It's either $100 or $500 million. It was supposed to be the most expensive work of art ever sold. Oh, $50 million.

The asking price was $50 million. Oh, okay. Ever sold new reasonable uh yeah uh the highest price ever paid for a single work by a living artist and then it came out after he sold it that the buyer was partially his own company like he was just driving up his own yeah art price um most art is propaganda including the the art. Yeah, yeah. Like he was just pumping money into it to make it more valuable. And basically what the way that the museum is used in terms of money also is that one of the things that's mentioned in these articles, one of them is from a guy from Blackstone. Real quick, we've talked about. Real quick, I do want to say that I do like Sean's idea. Like if I had an art exhibit, I'd be like,

yeah, I need someone cutting onions at all times. Yeah, not a dry eye in the house. His arts are very moving, very moving. So my exhibit on World War I features actual mustard gas. Anyway, that's how we got rid of the union. Blackstone. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, Blackstone.

And so, yeah. Or is it Blackrock? I don't know. Blackstone. Blackstone. By the way, I just need everyone in this room to know this. Every time we've said Blackrock, I've thought about editing in Frank Ocean's Crack Rock. Every time. And then I'm like, it's going to take too ocean's crack rock every time and then i'm like

it's gonna take too much work but every time we say it i think we should edit in fact well i'm editing this one so it's gonna be essentially the uh in the, what they say is that a piece increases in value when you put it in a museum. So what a lot of these art donors will do is they'll just donate high-end works of art, but with the purpose of driving up its resale value. That's pretty fascinating. And therefore their net worth. And so one of the most interesting things things uh was david cope had uh this piece that was called uh that's a very disrespectful way to talk about mrs david coke

uh the shipwreck and stormy seas that is a terrible way to talk about his wife which the the seas were more stormy because of climate change yeah those those were miscomponent i mean it was like they're all about like weather oh really like he just has this weird fascination with weather and what's interesting subliminal yeah like subconscious or like kind of like how george bush paints veterans or whatever yeah you know you're like trying to work out this like deep thing where you're like spreading global warming denial and like deep down know, you're, like, trying to work out this, like, deep thing where you're, like, spreading global warming denial, and, like, deep down you know you're doing something wrong. Yeah.

Yeah. Not even deep down, just subconsciously. I want everything on my wall to remind me what a monster I am. Well, apparently he would, like, walk in to, like, look at his painting, and I just imagine him, like, seeing those, like, waves crashing, and he's like, yeah, take the poor. Take him into your depths. I've seen him walk into the gallery and personally, I believe he was there to make sure nobody

set the paintings on fire. And you said he looked like one of the tree people from Lord of the Rings. Yes. I'm a big fan of those movies and he looked like an ant. I'm just imagining David Koch asking somebody to like alter the painting to put in the Philippines being taken under water. It's also funny that he looks like an ant

because you know when he watched that movie he was just like rooting for them all to get set on fire. So he put these paintings, he originally, and I think they're going back to the uh national national gallery in london and what happened there was that around the time that he was donating these paintings he also donated uh several million dollars to their endowment and at the time then they started pursuing pursuing this program where they would make working conditions really bad for the unionized security force.

Like they would give them hours that would make it impossible for them to hold down a second job. They would also just like push their schedules around. They tried to extend their hours. And it was essentially a pressure campaign to get it so that people would quit and then when union workers would quit they would be able to start to hire non-union workers or get them to sign a non-union contract and eventually

they went on strike for about 100 days the union and they ended up losing they had to like cede it over to like a private contracting company a lot of the security detail and what happened after that was damage to the art just jumped hell yes and so then david coke pulled his painting from the london gallery and moved it to the met where they have a unionized

security force and kept it there for a while number of people wearing their backpacks instead of holding them at their hand like a buffoon just increased astronomically do you think the david coke cato institute will write about this union issue so i i think that that gets us to where we can maybe start talking about like labor at the met like oh first i guess we can talk about the finances of the mets the mets basically it's got it's um its board is basically a rogues gallery of the richest people in new york along with um other other people like Henry Kissinger, the great statesman who also has more genocides to his name than probably any other person living or dead. He brought the Southeast Asia collection.

Personally, I saw him bring that. Southeast Asia, Latin America, other continents too too I'm sure Andy ends all of his sentences like that and so also Bangladesh so apparently a problem started at the Met when

first the old director of the Met retired and then they brought in this guy Tom Campbell, who when one billionaire died and left about a billion dollars worth of Cubist paintings to the Met.

But the people who were in charge of carrying those through to the Met negotiated with Campbell that they could give it to the Met if the Met basically created a new wing to store all the Cubist paintings. And they had to essentially,

he tried to negotiate a $600 million sum to build out this wing. And what ended up, so basically he was given a billion dollars in paintings and then tried to add onto that by building out a $600 million wing at the same time. Also the MIT, the Whitney,

um, museum in New York decided to find a new location. So the Met snapped that up. Uh, that was the brewer. And part of the idea of that was to hold a bunch of the Cubist paintings. And while he's doing all of that, the idea of the Met discovering that their billion dollars worth of Cubist

paintings are actually just shit that an NYU student drew on acid. We got confused. And so like... The guy who donated his water, right? Yeah, yeah. The water. Yeah. The family.

Beautiful makeup. Gorgeous. Yeah, yeah. They're a. The family. Yeah. Beautiful makeup. Gorgeous. Yeah, yeah. They're a big makeup family. And so, like, while all this was happening, then, like, the financial crisis hit, and a lot of their money dried up. And so, while he's now trying to, he was trying to expand the Met, at the same time, they were suddenly losing money.

He couldn't get any funding for the extension and at the same time he was trying to pivot to social media for the met to attract the millennials and when we say pivot he was physically pivoting his pelvis yeah oh yeah and so then at the same time he was fucking everyone in the met. Nice. Including, like, he got this very, like, high-end social media manager. The union guards had to get it written in their contract that they didn't have to remove him from the mummies anymore. A hard-fought negotiation. He would, like, go over expense or his like very expensive social media manager um to give priority to ideas from like the subordinate of that social media manager

who he was fucking right so um according to like a time story he also gave like this person like an infinite budget or just a big budget, partly because of the affair with no accountability. And so suddenly the Met found... But we have to lay off workers. Yeah. The Met suddenly found itself in financial dire straits. Probably... Great band.

Yeah. They found out they couldn't get uh money for nothing and so um they started laying off workers uh they they uh the retail workers the people who work all the stores at the museum uh they tried to uh they were in talks to unionize do you do you want to tell the story or yeah it was around 2009 and all the retail workers they signed their authorization cards with the nlrb to form a union and they had a majority they were ready to go to a vote and uh this lovely woman emily rafferty who used to be the chief financial operator for the museum held a very persuasive cocktail reception party for them

to inform them how they did not need a union. And, you know, the museum would always take care of them. They were very important to them. And that kind of tactic is legal, right? I'm sure, you know, nobody had any complaints with the NLM. And when it went to a vote, they believed this very honest woman and they voted down to unionize which was a shock to everybody but you know whatever they liked the champagne

very nice and uh several months later the museum cut half of the staff at the retail department. Wow. It was at least imported champagne, right? We'd like to think. And the starting salary, or the starting pay for these jobs is something like $23,000. The retail workers at the time, they're hourly, because most of them are part-time.

Because, you know, they're not a full-time union. And I believe they made around $8.50 to $9 an hour. Jesus Christ. Just barely above. Okay. Now, at the same time as that, the directors, you can actually find the tax forms for the Met

that list the directors and high level executives salaries. Mr. Campbell was making 1.6 million. Several other people were making close to a million. Some of the lower level directors were making 300,000. And then at the end of 2016, right before Mr.

Campbell had to step down, they all gave themselves bonuses of like $500,000. He gave himself like a $600,000 bonus. He earned it. Paw babies, paw babies. Which is, you know, the salary of like dozens and dozens of like security staff and retail workers,

the ones who are actually bringing the money into the Met and protecting its priceless artwork. Instead of running it directly into their social media managers. Yeah, yeah. So they were giving themselves these bonuses while at the same time laying off all these people and um also the uh the high-level staff they all their living expenses are taken care of they're given like penthouse suites next to the met that they can live in rent-free yeah yeah just on that like

from this new york post article i just like this little catty thing and in addition to like the thomas campbell like i think he according to new york post made 1.4 million in 2016 this is for running the museum into the ground uh the met allowed him to continue living just for the note it it was not that large on the irs documents so there was definitely some like shell uh shell tricks going on there uh the met allowed him to continue living in the Fifth Avenue abode, the Fifth Avenue penthouse, for six months past his June 30, 2017

departure. A Met spokesman said the apartment would be sold, but would not comment on whether Campbell paid to live there after he stepped down. So basically, he got to live there for free in addition to everything else. It's very hard out there. These are artist housing?

The rent is too damn high for these millionaires. I mean, he's very hard out there. Only when Instagram is brought up. That's what the pivot was all about. Tell me the engagement metrics. Gross. I guess we're...

Well, I know we didn't get to everything, but anything else before we wrap up here? Support Damien Hirst. The art world's hard, and he works at it. Watch his terrible fake documentary on Netflix that is about literally art

falling out of a ship, which I guess ties into the founding story of The Met. And I think that is it for this episode. Oh, I did want to say my father actually is an Irish immigrant. He does paint landscapes. And if you want to buy some actually good art that's not dog shit like Damien Hirst,

you can go to PatrickMcCarthy.org. I actually run my dad's website. I just have some paintings up there. And if you'd like to buy one of my dad's paintings and then put it in a museum in order to increase its value 10, and then resell it you know they're affordable i mean in the sense that i think he sells them for like 600 or something that's not bad so yes it's it's you know what if you're looking for a penny stock in the art world i think my dad's paintings are the ones to help you launder your fucking El Chapo Guzman money.

If you are stealing from a pension fund in your country, I would like a place to park that money. May I direct you to my dad's Irish landscapes at PatrickMcCarthy.org. But yes, thank you so much, Veronica Cohen. Anything you would like to mention or plug before we get out of here? No. Well, thank you for lending us your great insight about the art world and about the Met Gala.

I think that was one of my favorite parts, just learning about that. Yeah, yeah. And with that, this has been Grubstickers. I'm Yogi Poliwal. I'm Steve Jeffries. I'm Andy Palmerries I'm Andy Palmer I'm Sean P. McCarthy

We'll be back next week with another billionaire Enjoy your Thanksgiving everybody Thanks for listening diamonds and they don't even play the song shine bright like a diamond like what are you doing i mean in their defense that song sucks they haven't they hadn't excavated it out of south africa yet