The genius of Ali Baba

So I’m hoping that Ali Baba is going to make his way down from the Rotten Apple for the show this Friday night. Things are always a tad more interesting when Ali Baba is around. He delivers a certain element of uncertainty and insanity about it all that really gives a special zest to an evening. He’s like the hot sauce in a Bloody Mary or the wild-eyed crazy foul mouthed stripper at a dumpy T&A joint; a single ingredient that can really kick the crap out of something that can be mundane otherwise. Not that our shows are mundane ever. I mean to think that is just ridiculous. As you all know we’re awesome and deeply sexy at ALL times. Ali Baba just brings it to a new level of massive fabulousness.

I met Ali Baba a number of years ago when I joined the dot-com revolution. I was sitting in an auditorium with a bunch of other soon to be zillionaires all rubbing ourselves enthuiastically over our stock options and early retirements and getting orientated into our new lives as revolutionary and horrendously brilliant thinkers. I tell you we were going to do business in a whole new way and get rich as shit for our troubles. Oh, we were quite the cognoscenti!. The brain matter was leaking out of our Mensa deserving assholes and squishing around in our big clunky black shoes. We were making an E-TENSIFIED effort to be INNOVATORS and deliver the CUBE OF CONSOLIDATED SERVICES that would DRIVE A NEW GENERATION OF E-BUSINESSES to unforeseen heights of E-XPONENTIAL REVENUE GROWTH!!!!! It was sweet.

This company did our dry cleaning for us. They bought us, (well contributed to a lease anyway), fancy cars and leased fat apartments in Battery Park and mansions in Beverly Hills for the staffers. There was no way we could fail….except for not making any money which it turned out we were exceptionally good at and the down the tubes we all went.

It was a good ride though and the company was chock full of super smart people. It was the dopes at the top that couldn’t think their way out of a bag of shit that brought it all down. Seriously, we had an executive VP in charge of consulting services whose resume consisted of being an accountant for Circuit City, a dog groomer, and the little brother of the CEO. I exaggerate on here like my life depends on it but that last part, 100% factual and no bullshit. But to get back on track one of the brightest, and by far the most entertaining of characters, I met that day in the auditorium was my now good friend Ali Baba.

He’s the son of immigrants, has a fun last name, is a champion Brazilian Jui-Jitsu fighter, a brilliant storyteller, terrifying drinker, stalwart companion and recurring partner-in-crime for the trouble I seem to get myself into at times. We have had some really maddening adventures and I love to tell those stories. Ali gets portrayed on here as a one-dimensional buccaneer at times which is my fault but it’s just so damn fun to cover that side of his personality.

The thing that gets lost in all these tales of madness and frivolity with Ali Baba is that he is, no fail, one of the deep-down smartest sons a bitches I have ever known. Like, crazy ass Howard Hughes style smart with a brain that works on multiple levels, (thankfully one of those levels has a bar that's always open). He’s not a big talker about being a big old brainiac at all. We shoot the shit about stuff like how good my hair looks and this and that and out of the blue every once in a while he will pop up with something that is on a mental plateau that makes my head spin.

To wit, check this thing out that he sprung on me one recent day when we were talking. He says he does, "Hey...go to this site and tell me what you think. I think I figured out the stock market."

Hardly an original claim but when I looked at it, Ok when I looked at it I was totally confused, but when a couple of my buddies who know much of these things looked at it they were confounded. One said it gave him a boner and the other said it scared the shit out of him and I thought, "Holy jesus, Ali Baba has created the Iron Maiden of websites! Scary and boner inducing all at the same time! AWESOME!!!” I'm all for his brain, I'm counting on it to put my kids through college. See for yourself, I don’t totally get it but to think that he just thought of this whole thing in his cranium and turned it into a real bonafide business is pretty wild.

Here's what I'm talking about: MechanicalSwingTrader

I think it's pretty wild anyway, (and a purty purty website). The name is cool too, it sounds like a robot sex party night at an S&M club.

Speaking of which….

Several years ago the Mrs. and I went up to New York for a weekend to hang out and indulge in some mirth and frivolity with Ali Baba and the rest of our pals up there. My wife went to school in the Village at a place called Parson’s School of Design that’s supposedly the cat’s ass when it comes to artsy designer stuff. She’s something else Mrs. Castor….fo rill. Suff.

So we like going up there and walking around and staying up late and looking sexy and fabulous and all that great Metropolitan stuff. I love New York, where else can you buy a slice of pizza, an eight dollar pack of smokes and a triple-headed strap-on with blinking lights at 4:00 A.M. all from the same store? (Not that I have…….but I could if I wanna).

Anyway, me and Ali Baba had somehow heard about this bondage themed French bistro around St. Mark’s place and figured it would be a hoot and a whistle to take my lovely there as a surprise. It was ball-pinchingly cold that night and of course we got lost so by the time we got to the unmarked door the Mrs. was a tad testy. The hope, (my hope anyway), was that the insides were going to be so fantastically cool and sexy that she would totally want to retreat back to our cruddy hotel and sham-a-lama-ding-dong and freak-a-lacka-ping-pong and nudge nudge winky winky, (Ali would be excused if this turned out to be the case. I’m crazy but I ain’t no DAMN FREAK!!!!”)

After our Lewis and Clark style trek we were finally there. Ali rang the bell and after a moment the door creaked slowly open and a big menacing harlot in leather asked us in. The place was kinda cool looking with torture racks and manacles and that kind of crap but except for the busboy walking around in pleather hotpants it was totally empty. I guess we should have thought that 7:30 at an S&M bistro in Manhattan was a tad early to show for dinner but we didn’t so we sheepishly sat down in the emptiness and perused the menu.

The food looked good, standard overpriced French bistro fare but it was the extras that really gave the spice to the offerings. Where else can you order foie gras with a side of verbal humiliation? Roasted duck with ass lashings from a dominatrix? Seared beef in wine sauce with a penis slap topped off with a swift kick to the ass? It’s kinda like Medieval Times for the ball-gag set.

The Mrs. doesn’t drink, (I’ll give you a second to process that fact and climb get back into your chair), so she went through the next couple of hours stone sober while Ali Baba and I drank like our lives depended on it. The food was great actually and we were having a grand old time gradually getting more and more feisty along the way. I went to the can and a harridan in a leather bustier smacked my ass with a riding crop as I passed by her. It was so surprising I thought a little pee might have sneaked out when I yelped "EEK!" but I was able to hold it all together utilizing my fabulous powers of urinary self-control. Ali was infatuated with a waitress that was not our waitress which caused some grief from our assigned server as he kept talking to the object of his affection. After a bit our grumbly wench came to the table, tied a knot in a napkin, shoved it in Ali's mouth and tied it tightly around his head. Nonplussed he grabbed a straw and drank around the gag to our server’s annoyance and the cheers of the (now full) restaurant. After we left he worked the napkin out of his mouth and slung it round his neck like a jaunty cravat for the rest of the evening. Ali Baba is chock full of ingenuity and panache, it’s an integral part of his charm.

Eventually stuffed and spanked and sotted we left and continued carousing through St. Mark’s. It’s a fun neighborhood made better by having a friend that owns a bar there. The hours they were long and the times were good. That night ended like many others with big hugs from Ali and a wave as he rode off into the night with dawn just on the horizon.

My wife loves him like a brother and actually encourages our adventures together. He’s just that kind of guy. So if you want to meet Ali Baba and get your liver destroyed in the process it would be worth your while. Characters like him are few and far between and the more you meet the better off you are. Any of you brainy money types that want to know more about the swing trader thing drop me a line and I can put you in touch.

Here’s to Ali, long may he reign.