I remember May of 2001 like it was yesterday. My birthday was around the corner and my business was stable, albeit boring. After the crash of 2000, my business was solely focused on preferred stocks and bonds. My gross production was a joke, about 15% of what it was just a year prior; but I was building assets. To couch my boredom, I started playing with my own money, in a very aggressive manner.

I was in my early 20′s and had no respect for money. If I lost $250k in an option trade gone awry, big fucking deal–I’d make more money. The only problem with this mentality was I hadn’t come to grips with the new reality, which entailed me being a fucking piker. My income was a joke and my spending habits didn’t reflect that “new normal.”

So I took $300k from my checking account and splashed it into the markets, leveraged it up and said my prayers. I couldn’t lose; after all, I was a genius. The market was ripping tits and 9/11 hadn’t happened yet. I was the shit and the other brokers could suck my dick if they didn’t like it.

By mid-May, I was really feeling myself, as you can see by the chart of the Nasdaq, circa May 2001. Things were on fucking fire and the internet stocks were making a comeback. I made my small fortune buying and selling dot coms, that later became dot bombs. But it wasn’t clear to anyone still in the game that they were dead. Although I cursed these stocks on a regular basis and didn’t dare buy them for clients, with my own money, I didn’t give a fuck.

What transpired next was a worst case scenario, spawned from hell, delivered to my door–executive class.

In less than 2 weeks, the Nasdaq dropped a little more than 10%. However, my portfolio of high octane HORSESHIT plunged. After they plunged, they plunged some more. I stopped going to work because I could not concentrate and wanted to focus on my account–because it was pretty much the bulk of my savings. I started trading from my friends office in Bay Ridge Brooklyn. He was managing $20 million for one guy, like some sort of devil degenerate. Aside from that, he was a nice guy.

As the market plunged, I bought more. I could not believe the prices on the screen. Things were getting so fucking cheap. It defied logic. I was levered to the hilt, greedy as fuck, fully convinced that the market was wrong and I was right.

It all ended on my birthday with my account at $00.00. “Happy fucking birthday, asshole”, said my margin clerk, as she liquidated everything. I remember the pangs of misery, the sharp knife in my stomach, as I celebrated my 25th birthday. I had to tell my wife “honey, I shrunk the bank account”, which led to  ”no touching the savings account for speculation ever again” polices, at The House of Fly, which were later revoked as I regained my footing of manhood.

To make matters exponentially worse, EVERYTHING I SOLD came right back to my basis, and more, literally one week after I was flushed.

The moral of the story: Markets don’t give a shit about your birthday.

As your host here on iBankCoin, I felt it was my duty to describe what I do here, exactly. Compare and contrast the ongoings here– to other financial websites– and you will find the other sites are penned by pussies, lacking grit, also without top hat and smoking jacket. I hope you understand the significance of the statement.

I was placed in a pot of hot boiling water since young, dealing with adversity, widowed mother, impoverished and without snacks. Hard times.

It wasn’t chance that Le Fly was plucked out of his high school class by a mutual fund manager from Seligman, after reading an article written by a young space alien magician. Shortly thereafter, Plutonium Petey was opening mail for one of the biggest mutual fund managers in the country, clad in chinese delivery man shirts, extraordinarily rough around the edges.

The dominos were set in motion from that point; but it was only the beginning.

During the Asian contagion crisis, penniless and dejected, Senor Tropicana was left with just one client. He was a southern gentleman of extreme importance, with a proclivity to gamble. He had no business entrusting me with his money, since I was out of my league. But he gave me a shot.

As the crisis deepened, my wife and 1 year old son waited for me at home, basement apartment, owned by a fucking moron. About $35k in credit card debt soon ballooned to $50k, as my income remained nil for a period of 4 months, without abatement.

No one to rely upon but myself.

I capitulated, opting for the idea of a “salaried job” at one of the discount houses. I could make $50k in a good year, modern day union job, without the fucking union. But I was so depressed, my interview performances were abhorrent. No one wanted to hire someone who was moping around in chinese delivery man shirts, like a fucking loser, inverse of boss.

There is nothing dramatic about what I am about to tell you: there was no option but success from that point. I hit bottom, which coincided with the bottom of the market, in the gloomy months of 1998.

My southern gentleman client had just $20k with me. That was the entirety of my assets under management. I went to work.

Inside of 6 months, his account appreciated to $200k. My roster of clients expanded quickly through referral, as I went on a 15 for 15–dick hanging long– winning streak of leveraged excellence.

I was making $50k per month.

Since then there have been several peaks and valleys, namely 2001, when I wiped out my brokerage account– margin call style. But I had already learned the lesson, which was nothing was able to stop me, if I played the game with energy and better than the dork next to me.

Stay tuned for iBankCoin’s redesign launch. I think you will like it.

A FAZmobile was seen zipping down the street. Inside of it was a bearshitter, clad in a burlap hoodie and florescent orange velcro pants. This FAZmobile I speak of traveled at frightening speeds. Onlookers cowered as it “zipped” by.

Back on Wall Street, Benjamin Bernanke was fireside, smoking a blunt filled with Moroccan hashish, mumbling to himself “I’m gonna get those bitches.”

The FAZmobile headed towards Wall. The occupant fancied he’d crash his mobile into the building where Benjamin Bernanke resided, with designs of destroying The Bearded Clam and his army of printing presses.

As the FAZmobile approached, Ben stepped outside, gazing at the insanity on wheels that was the FAZmobile. From the skies a large object appeared. It descended upon Wall Street with such force, the ground trembled, tipping the FAZmobile over on its back.

Benjamin entered this object, which happened to be The Federal Reserve helicopter, flicking his blunt down below at the FAZmobile, which was paralyzed and stupid, drenched in its own gasoline. As the flames plumed into the NYC skyline, Ben smiled and said “I got you bitch.”

The end.

“Tying the knot is the ceremonial bliss of the soul-mated bud and leaf. A delicate union, this is a ‘meant to be’ tea found 2,000 feet atop the famed Yunling Mountain Range of China then hand rolled into a coil of sacred perfection. Gold and black intertwine as one, creating a unique copper hue with sweet honey notes singing legendary declarations of devotion.”

Upon my last visit to Teavana, where Mrs. Fly concluded her monthly duty of procuring $200 of tea for our pantries, I chatted with the sales clerk about the superiority of Earl Gray and how its bergamot undertones basically reduced the other teas in his store to boxes of feces. Laughing mightily, in his gayish ways, he disagreed. As a matter of fact, he rather insisted that I purchase even more tea to prove his point. Startled and taken aback– by this bold maneuver from a clerk clad in a chinese man costume– I agreed.

Smugly, he waved a large metallic box cover over the large box of tea he was holding– to direct the aromas to my direction. Embarrassed by the spectacle, I quickly agreed with satisfaction and paid for the tea.

When I got home, Mrs. Fly yelled at a very loud decibel that she was, indeud, preparing tea. She’d boil up the water and pour hers into a plunger filled with herbal crap and mine in the majestic Earl Gray. She scurried over to my office and placed a giant iBankCoin mug onto my desk; but it looked different. Typically, the milk dilutes my tea enough to give it a light brown colour. But this tea was far darker and ominous looking. It was quite intimidating, if I might say so myself.

I took a sip.

WOW!

Much to my amusement and chagrin, Mrs. Fly had inadvertently or insidiously, brewed me a cup of Copper Knot Hongcha tea!, fetched from off-reach parts of “poor as fuck” China for my pleasure–the very same tea that homosexual tea clerk had challenged me to try. I must admit, the delightfulness of this tea cannot be described with a single blog post, or any post for that matter. Nevertheless, I report to you with the most dire of tones, THE EARL GRAY TEA HAS BEEN PLACED IN THE BACK OF THE PANTRY, for the time being.

If there is one word that summed up today, that word would be “BUTTERBEER.” Whilst my wife, daughter and two sons made their way to some lunatic air swing ride thing, I made my way to the BUTTERBEER line. To be honest, I had no fucking idea what BUTTERBEER was, nor do I know why I keep capitalizing the word each and every time I write it. Nevertheless, I wanted to drink it because I am a purveyor of butter and I’ve been known to quench my thirst with select artisan beers. Granted, both butter and beer in the same sentence makes as little sense as China loosening bank reserve requirements while dealing with $119 Brent crude; I wanted it nonetheless.

As fate would have it, my family ended up scrapping their plans to partake in aerial lunacy, specifically due to the long line. They had no idea where I could have drifted off to, as I was supposed to meet them in exactly 1 hour. However, my reputation tends to precede myself in the most egregious way, helping them pinpoint my locale without equivocation: THE BUTTERBEER line.

Ashamed to be seen on such a line, I wore a hat and pulled it close to my eyes, so that no one could see me (please note, this same hat was later eaten or lost or knocked off my head–gone forever– done in by a T-rex/rapidly falling boat combination); but it was of no use. I drank up the BUTTERBEER and felt disgusted by the whole ordeal. I tossed it into a trash bin after drinking just 5/6th’s of it, then headed off in search of a disgusting and absolutely grotesque turkey leg–unnatural in both elephantine size and brackish taste.

My wife, Mrs. Fly, accidentally melted a plastic spoon in our oven the other day. Through mishap, while taking pizza from the oven, she dropped a plastic spoon onto the oven’s ass. Frantically, in an effort to recover from such a heinous error, she raced for the drawer to find BBQ thongs to remove the smoldering fork. I watched with heightened curiosity as this event transpired. As pale as a ghost, she took the half melted fork out of the oven, then began lamenting over her error. When the oven cooled off, she scrubbed away, trying to remove the hardened plastic fork from the oven’s ass. However, it was too late.

The fork just sort of spread out on the oven, like creamed cheese. This of course, amongst other things, humored me to no end.

When it was time for dinner to be prepared, naturally, she had forgotten about le fork de plastic. Happily, she placed her roast into the oven, then galloped away, cheerfully, to go read about some new lipstick. Watching the clock, in between sips of Earl Grey Tea, I knew it was only a matter of time.

“WHAT IS THAT SMELL?” she exclaimed. I replied, “oh, it’s nothing but the plastic fork you so readily melted in the oven.” It’s worth noting that I responded with grace, whilst casually reading my book (Bleak House).

“But, we cannot have this smell. What will we do?” Again, in a calm and casual manner, I replied “we shall have the plastic fork for dinner.”

“It’s not funny” she shot back, angered by my relaxed tone.

“As a matter of fact, it is quite. We shall have plastic fork with breakfast and lunch and with dinner” I added.

“Arggg.”

As a sit here, blogging like the wind and the sun, shining gifts of knowledge and joy onto your peasantry heads, I am heating up an english muffin, with a side order of plastic fork. It has a certain aroma to it, part industrial, part cosmic. You can smell the muffin, but also the fork. That’s the beauty of it.

Mrs. Fly has all but had enough of le fork de plastic and harbors secretive designs of tossing the entire oven, curbside, in order to perfume her home with the smells of delicacy. I know this to be true.

Howsoever, I beg to differ.

Apple shit on shorts in haunting after-hours trading. It’s almost as if Steve Jobs came back to mudstomp shorts, one last time, before chilling out in some heavenly carrot farm. Apple derivative plays will shred bears tomorrow, equal only to the horrors of how the infamous chicken Mcnugget is fashioned.

Chickens are captured and punched in the face. Their legs are tied and beaks snapped off by line workers. Then they are shoved– alive– into filthy large “Mcnugget machines”, where they are turned into paste. The paste is collected by employees of McDonald’s, who happen to be goblins living off minimum wage, and first placed plainly into cardboard boxes, then into big plastic bags. The plastic bags are then tossed onto conveyor belts, where they gloomily travel under dimly lit halogen lamps, often flickering and pestered by vermin, then, finally, dropped into boiling water. While boiling, employees of the McDonald’s fish out the bags with grotesquely large nets, and placed onto metal tables– where other Mcdonald’s employees cut them open with knives.

MCNUGGET MACHINE

The cooked meat is rolled and hand inspected for loose feathers or pieces of beak, then sent merrily onto another conveyor belt to be breaded, “spiced” and shaped. After the meat is freeze dried and packaged, deviant truck drivers grab them and throw them violently onto trucks to be delivered to your local McDonald’s.

THAT’S WHAT’S GONNA HAPPEN TO THE FUCKING SHORTS TOMORROW.

I told you about the first time I got fired. Now let me tell you about the time I got fired after I quit my fucking job.

I had left a boiler room operation because, well, it was a fucking boiler room. They ripped people off and the brokers were dicks. I was unlicensed and never sold stock to anyone. I went to a small start up firm, got my series 7, then left after 6 months because my boss was a fucking pussy and I couldn’t learn anything from him. However, I did learn a great deal from a gentleman and “professional account opener” and prolific cocaine addict named “Ed Motta.” However, that’s another story.

Anyway, after I got licensed, I went to another start up firm. Back in the late 90′s, Wall Street was littered with boutique investment banks. I was hired and assigned to their biggest broker. Let’s call this prick Neil.

Neil was in his mid 40′s and was doing about $110k in gross commissions per month. Even back then, despite living on a cold callers salary of $200 per week, I looked down on such a number, mainly because the biggest broker at my previous firm was doing $300k per month. Then again, that was a boiler room and Neil was selling NKE.

By the time I met Neil, I was fairly adept at opening new accounts. On average, I’d get about 7 new accounts per month, with hardly any renegs. Other people did more, most did less. But my new accounts were usually big guys, due to my ability to hold a conversation with intelligent life-forms, unlike Neil. The first morning working for him, I was handed a sales script. This did not surprise me, since scripts were commonplace in any brokerage house. However, what did shock and appall me was his insistence that I follow it, verbatim, like some sort of idiot robot.

In Neil’s small brain, there was a canned response for any possible objective. If Mr. Jones said “not interested” or “go fuck a chuck wagon”  Neil wanted me to reply with an exact set of words, strung together by dicks, without deviation–no matter how retarded it seemed. Basically, he was the FOXCONN of the brokerage industry. He had this shit down to a science. Any objection you could think of, this fucking sociopath had a canned response to defeat you, then cajole you into sending him money. Every morning and afternoon, he’d call me into his office to “skill mill” and he was never happy. I was always stubborn and refused to use his “straight-line” approach, which ironically was invented by the scumbags at Lehman. We’d get into heated arguments and it always ended the same way.

“Fly, who’s the fucking millionaire here and who is the piker cold caller?”

After three weeks, I called the owner of the firm from home and told him that I quit. In a fury, Neil called me back, trying to address my objections  with his patented canned pitch. It was hilariously pathetic. I told him I wasn’t anyone’s doormat and I’d do just fine without him. The truth of the matter was, I had no money– other than some account set up by my Mother that I used to purchase American Online stock. I had just moved out into a basement apartment with my wife and newborn baby and relied upon the $200 per week check to buy food.

The owner of the firm called me back and said “fuck Neil, come work for me.”

I kind of liked that idea on several levels. One, I knew bouncing around from firm to firm would look horrible on my resume. And, secondly, I needed the money and wanted to get my shot at “going on my own” by managing my own book.

I agreed.

The next day I reported to the owner and Neil just glared at me, like “WTF is this piker with the bullshit money tie still doing here.” I didn’t care. I put my head down and went to work on a new iPO the firm was underwriting. That same day, Joe Montana (football legend) came to the office for the roadshow. He was on the board of directors of this company and I got him to sign my prospectus. It is likely worth something today, as only 50-75 of these fuckers exist.

Anyway, I did some calling and got about 30 “indications of interest” for the bullshit deal. It was 5pm and the junior brokers were all called into a meeting. In the middle of the meeting, the owner of the firm barged in like Jack Nicholson in the Shining and said “where is Fly?” About 20 other people looked at me, as I raised my hand, and he said “you’re fired. Come with me.”

This really shocked me, since I thought the owner was “cool.” The truth of the matter is, no one is cool. The owner convinced me to not quit, just so that he could humiliate and fire me. I was young, naive and I thought I was special. These guys were making millions of dollars and couldn’t care less about my plights, goals and aspirations. As a matter of fact, I wasn’t even mad for the affront. I viewed it as a game of chess and I got mated.

I picked my shit up, made a few phone calls and had a new place to work the next day.