Our Queen
Nine questions with Jessica Pressler
Scam Fam, have I got a treat for you: One of the absolute best scam reporters in the biz, Jessica Pressler, answered a bunch of my goofy questions over email.
Pressler has a ridiculously impressive portfolio that appeals very much to our interests — she's the reason you know Anna Delvey’s name, she's looked Lloyd Blankfein in the eye, and when we all go see Hustlers the moment it opens on September 12th, we will be seeing her work brought to life. I wish Julia Stiles luck in embodying the full glory. Of course, we shouldn't sleep on her profiles of such hunks of our time as Channing Tatum and Ryan Lochte, nor should we ignore her recent Woodward treatment of preschool politics.
I'm sure you're wondering what my personal relationship to her is, as well as exactly where I was when I read The Hustlers at Scores (Ojai, in the living room of an Airbnb, A1-since-Day-1 Oakley and I were texting back and forth, "oh my god,” “oh my god,” “it's so good"). Never fear, instead of telling you more about her, I will tell you all about me.
I first encountered Pressler in the summer of 2004 when I was an intern at Philadelphia Weekly where she was the gossip columnist. I dreaded having to fact check her stories, because they were terribly difficult to re-report and verify, but they were pretty much never wrong. The big news in Philly that summer was that The Real World was filming its 15th season in the city.
I was living with my parents and working at a restaurant called Johnny Mañana's; it was famous(ish) for the giant chili pepper hanging above the entrance, and for offering a giant margarita that served 4-6 that your underage waitress could bring to the table with multiple giant straws. People stole the oversized glasses all the time, and it was a real pain in the butt to explain to my manager week after week why we we couldn't serve more than two of them at a time even though he'd just ordered six more of them jawns.
The rumor was that the Real World cast, which had been wreaking havoc around town, was going to come into the restaurant. When I'd go to my office job, I'd email Pressler updates, "It might be Thursday," or "Now they're saying Sunday," and somehow she managed not to reply to any of those emails with "Truly no one cares." (She worked from home, probably to avoid having to say that to my face.)
When the cast did eventually come into the restaurant, I was asked to pour tequila from the bottle down someone's throat, but I refused to sign a release, so they replaced me with someone else in the shot. I engaged in corporate espionage for the first but not last time in my life and stole the receipts from their dinner. I dutifully reported everything they had ordered and everything else that had happened, which was exactly nothing, to my favorite gossip columnist, and after patiently explaining that it's not gossip if it's not juicy, she threw me a bone and ran an item about how the cast had been "spotted drinking" at Johnny Mañana's. I explained to my manager I had made that mention happen, and yet he never treated me like the hero I believed I was.
Jessica and I didn't stay in touch because we weren't really friends; I'm not sure I'd even met her in person. A few years later, I'd moved to New York and so had she. On Tuesday mornings, I'd obsessively refresh nymag.com for the Gossip Girl recaps she wrote with Chris Rovzar (I lived for the reality index). I eventually worked up the nerve to email her again, which I did from my Condé Nast email address so she'd think I was important? She generously agreed to have a drink with me to "talk about my career" (she paid even though I was the one benefitting), and she could not have been kinder or more supportive.
And in the years since when I've run into her at parties (yes, I go to them, don't be jealous) or reached out out of the blue as I did for this interview, that kindness has stayed consistent enough that I sometimes describe her as "my good friend Jessica Pressler" even though we've met IRL maybe eight times, tops.
So now, even though I'm sure you would love to continue reading my diary, I will let my good friend Jessica Pressler speak for herself.
This Week in Scams: What is the best revenge?
Jessica Pressler: Completely forgetting about whoever you wanted revenge against (but not due to like, Alzheimer’s or anything traumatic).
TWIS: What's something illegal that should be legal or something legal that should outlawed?
JP: As I was contemplating this question my husband sent me this photo from the movie theater and I feel like it kind of IS an answer #americaisalreadygreat
TWIS: What is the best disguise?
JP: Nobody looks at a Japanese tourist.
TWIS: You have to assemble a crack team of 4 - 8 people, living or dead, real or fictional, to stage a heist. You're the leader, obviously. Who do you choose and what do you rob?
JP: Definitely cannot answer this on the grounds that it may incriminate me.
TWIS: You're teaching a class on, uh, how to scam. What's on the syllabus?
JP: I’d start in the self-help/inspiration aisle, because if you’re going to run a confidence game, then you need some confidence. So first pick up:
The Secret by Rhonda Byrne
You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero
And it’s always nice to hear that other people have succeeded in doing what you’re about to try so I’d wander over to the business aisle and throw in:
David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell
The Innovator's Dilemma by Clay Christensen
And you’re going to need to feel really secure in your cold capitalist mindset so you’d want to pick up Atlas Shrugged.
TWIS: What alias would you use while fleeing the country or ordering something embarrassing online?
JP: Thessaly LaForce. Because she’s a glamorous international-seeming person so everyone would just assume she’s going on a shoot or to interview an amazing artist in their villa. And if someone happened to open the package of head-lice shampoo I ordered in her name they’d just be like, “Oh I guess this is why her hair is so shiny.”
TWIS: Have you ever had a fake ID and can you describe it?
JP: Yes! It was the old ID of the sister of a friend, who happened to be a tall, blonde, 22-year-old Rockette. She assured me that even though it was expired I would have no problem getting into bars, as she never had, but it was taken away from me by the first bouncer who looked at it.
TWIS: What is the worst thing you've been caught doing?
JP: Probably when I let my friend Dan P. Lee get in the subway turnstile with me at the Jefferson Avenue L Train stop and was arrested for theft of services and had to spend a day in a vest picking up garbage in public parks. Now I sneak my children through the turnstile with me all the time!
TWIS: Speaking of those children, have they ever scammed you?
JP: Of course, and I am powerless against them! Parenthood is the ultimate scam.
My Week in Consumption
Meet the Unfluencers (I'd apologize for including so much New York mag in the newsletter this week if I didn't like all the stories so much).
Had a heavenly dinner with some girlfriends at Bessou. What a winning spot that is!
I cosign Lindsay Robertson’s love letter to one of my favorite New York institutions; even if you don’t live here, you can absolutely chair dance to this gem.
On the movie theater tip, I saw The Kitchen at Nitehawk in Park Slope and that movie is very, very bad, BUT there is an overpriced ginger lime slushie there that I super enjoyed.
Programming note: TWIS will be on vacation next week, so I'll see you back here in September! If you miss me, you can always reply to my emails, or revisit my past gems here.