$cam Nation

BARDI

Hello brokies across the land and sea.

BARDI

My name is Bardi aka Balenciaga Bardi aka Birkin Bag Bardi aka Bottega Venetta Bardi aka Blanik Bardi aka Billion Dollar Bardi… but you can call me Bardi and I am here to teach this seminar on How To Be Less Like You, broke down financially insecure, and More Like Me … also known as….Scam Nation.

Oh, I just love when the title of the play appears in the play.

But this is not a play it’s a game called life and I’m bout to school all yall.

But to get back on the subject at hand… Scam

Now, time is your most valuable asset, more valuable than money, but also most closely translated in value to the dollar dollar bill yall. And you could never afford my rate, but I am gifting you pro bono work to teach you how to build THEE investment portfolio that will take you from a brokie to a baddie. No worries, my accountant has figured out how to write off this gift on behalf of my charitable organization, let me hear y’all say,

BARDI

Just checking to make sure you’re still with me. Call me your financial advisor. A fee-only CFP. I hope you artists were paying attention in your financial wellness workshop. And I know you’re thinking what qualifies this bad mamajama to teach such a highly skilled and specific workshop. Who is she? Anna Delvy? Nope, just Bardi.

Raised as Brigette.

With a silver spoon in my mouth, but diamond was always my favorite natural element. I was always drawn to it. As a child, my parents were always perfectly upper middle class and intended me to continue that financial legacy. I had what I needed. I never wanted for the basic needs. I mean, my Super Sweet Sixteen was broadcast on MTV. I was the original reality star on Baldwin Hills and I lived in Beverly. So she was always an upper class money and attention grubbing elitist? One might ask. And, yes, the answer is yes.

BARDI

But it was my proximity to execs at MTV and specifically the programming of music videos that inspired me. My moms found it comical and lighthearted... but my dad...my dad found it useless and wasteful, so to satisfy his desires I went to Wharton for my MBA, went into Private Equity consulting - telling very wealthy people to give me their money to make them wealthier. I was very good at this. Life that is. Academic. Check.

Corporate. Check. Getting to the

    . Check. And built my own 501c3 nonprofit... somebody say,

BARDI

Ard, just checking to make sure y’all are still with me. Scam Nation. Now, rules of engagement: this is a participatory seminar so we will start with a vocal warmup. When I say, “I know that’s right” you say “Big Bags Bussin out the Bentley Bentega man Balenciaga Bardi Back and all you Bitches stuck. It’s Big Bags Bussin out the Bentley Bentega man Birkin Bag Bardi Back and all you Bitches stuck.”

Yeah, I thought this particular group would have some trouble with that, so...

 BARDI

I can help teach you how to get out of your financial stress and thrive the Instagram baddies you were always destined to be. If you tryna get your money right and get your wealth up? ...I know that’s right...

 As the audience begins to repeat the phrase “Big Bags Bussin out the Bentley ...”,

 Bardi pauses. She breaks into action. She pulls out pieces of paper with the BCG matrix and “Big Bags Bussin out the Bentley ...” She begins handing them out.

 BARDI

I know that’s right...

 The powerpoint slide shifts to a jarring voice quite similar in pattern to Bardi’s. The ppt slide reads : “Additionally, in blaming the poor for their own poverty—that is, in saying that they remain poor because they don’t make rational economic decisions—dominant discourses uphold the idea that the poor could get out of poverty if only they would learn to act a certain way.”

Bardi tries to change the slide unsuccessfully and becomes more violent until the powerpoint completely shuts off.

Beat.

BARDI

As a former BCG consultant and lifetime bad bitch, we will use our BCG growth share matrix.

BARDI

A framework that helps you prioritize your different ...lets call them investments. Look at all the investments you make in life-- like time, energy, love, that dead beat boyfriend, and use this matrix to quickly analyze what you need to continue to invest in and has to go. What has the highest ROI-- Return on Investment and what to discard. Where to invest and where to divest. What is a drain on your money making capacity and what is a firecracker (?) You get where I’m going with this. Now let’s go through the four categories of investment.By adjusting your investment in these four areas, you will secure the bag and I’m talking prada mami, prada.

Let’s start with the lowest of the lows. The DOGS.

BARDI

Low growth and low dependability. You should liquidate, divest, get rid of, reposition, annihilate ASAP. These are the haters that said you don’t deserve. That you aren’t worth it. Well how much are you worth?

 Play the How Much Are You Worth Game, where Bardi guestimates the cost of what folks are wearing.

 BARDI

I am worth-

 Bardi tries and tries to say a number. She begins choking on the unspoken words that cannot come out of her mouth. No coughs are heard. She turns away to get water. Then the ppt slide changes and we see a visual of “63 cents to every white man’s dollar”- this animated graphic should then show how compound interest effects this number over time.

Bardi returns and the slide is back to the DOGS slide.

BARDI

As I was saying before that coughing fit, please excuse me. Cut the DOGS.... Moving on to the...

BARDI

Question Marks: high growth potential, however low dependability. You should invest in or discard these question marks, depending on their chances of becoming stars.

The biggest question mark of all LOVE.

 Bardi turns to ask the audience

BARDI

Do you think love is free?

-How much does it cost to love you? If, Revenue = Profit - Cost

-What is the profit of loving, specifically, you? Is it status? Is it notoriety? Is it support? All aspects that can be translated into a number. Oh it can’t? Well, what does the pre-nup state is your value?

What’s the cost of gas, flights, rent to visit the one you choose to love? What about to create experiences? What about long term earning potential? How about visas for them to remain in this country? Or to visit your love when they have to return to a home country.

How do you account for inflation? It’s easier to choose love when you’ve got wealth because your money solves these problems. And if you have the choice, why not love a wealthy person? How much did that engagement ring and wedding cost?

There can be no separation of economics from personal relationships.

Every interpersonal relationship comes with a cost. It’s all transactional.

 Bardi has an outsized reaction

BARDI

FUCK!

 She then remembers she’s in a seminar. She smiles at the audience. She is clearly frazzled. She goes to unplug speakers, the music plays louder, she begins tearing apart the classroom trying to find something.

 BARDI

I Know that’s right...

 Gold Digger continues to play but is now crashing into language from academic article spoken in the voice similar to Bardi’s “these stereotypes are misleading, false, unfair, racist, sexist, degrading, and overwhelmingly not grounded in fact. Research that has explored how poor consumers navigate the economic worlds around them has determined that they possess a great deal of consumer information, can successfully navigate the consumer world, and make careful decisions about how to spend their limited money. These stereotypes, however, employed as controlling images, create and reinforce a “politics of disgust”, and ultimately serve to reinforce a hegemonic worldview that blames the poor for their own poverty, ignoring the social structures that create and perpetuate a system that works against those who are not already white and middle class. Despite their lack of grounding in reality, however, such stereotypes continue to flourish in popular, political, and even educational contexts.”

 Then, the sound warps and becomes Caesar’s monologue from Gem of the Ocean. As the monologue occurs in a deeper voice, Bardi’s body begins to move through the gestures as if she’s physically bonded with Ceasar in another multiverse at this very moment.

 Bardi mouths but never speaks,

“I got to play the hand that was dealt to me. You look around and see you black. You look at the calendar. Slavery‘s over. I‘m a free man. I can get up whatever time I want to in the morning. I can move all over and pick any woman I want. I can walk down the street to the store and buy anything my money will buy. There ain‘t nothing I can‘t have. I‘m starting out with nothing so I got to get a little something. A little place to start. You look and see the race you got to run is different than somebody else’s. Maybe it‘s got more hills. It‘s longer. But this is what I got. Now what to do with it?…

Went down to the bank to borrow some money. They told me I needed some collateral. Say you need something to borrow money against. I say all right, I‘ll get me some collateral. I opened me up a gambling joint in the back of the barbershop. Sold whiskey. The police closed it down…

 A fellow named John Hanson started a riot. I seen that wasn‘t gonna be nothing but bad news. I took him on one to one. Man to man. He busted my eye. That‘s why I can‘t see but so good out my one eye. He busted my eye but I put down the riot.

They gave me a year. I did six months when the Mayor called me in to see him. Say he wanted to put me in charge of the Third Ward. Told me say you fry the little fish and send the big fish to me. They give me a gun and a badge. I took my badge and gun and went down to the bank and laid it on the counter. Told them I wanted to borrow some money on that.

There was a fellow name Harry Bryant had a place on Colwell street he sold me. They ran him out of town. Charged me three times what it was worth. Took the money and ran. They tried to kill him for selling to a Negro. I say all right I got me a little start. They been mad at me ever since. Everybody mad at me. You mad at me.”

 Bardi collapses. Moments pass. She comes back online, beleagueared. Bardi is changed... She is erratic (?)

NOT SO BARDI

I.... Uh....Where Am.... Hello

All...

 The slide changes unprompted to

Not So Bardi looks at it confused.

NOT SO BARDI

Hmmmm. Oh Hmmm. No no that’s all wrong. Consumption, defined as “the processes by which consumer goods and services are created, bought, and used”, is a “set of social, cultural, and economic practices” that in capitalism is undergirded by the ideology of consumerism, which “serves to legitimate capitalism in the eyes of ordinary people”.

NOT SO BARDI

No no no no no no no no no. Turn this off. There must be a document somewhere... Here... Turn that off...

Yes, this is from the academic journal....

 Words continue karaoke style “...out the Bentley Bentega man Balenciaga Bardi Back and all you Bitches stuck. Cash Cows are low growth, but very dependable...”

NOT SO BARDI

Consumerism can be defined as “the misplaced belief (the myth) that the individual will be gratified by consuming . . . an acceptance of consumption as a way to self- development, self realization and self-fulfillment

Words continue karaoke style “... You should milk these “cows” for their “cash” and reinvest...It’s Big Bags Bussin out the Bentley Bentega man Birkin Bag Bardi Back and all you Bitches stuck.”

 Reverse-Bardi runs over to booth.

NOT SO BARDI

She take my money...when I’m in need... Come on, yall know the words sing it with me.... yes she’s a trifling

 NOT SO BARDI tries to corral the audience into singing

 NOT SO BARDI

Please, please sing with me... She take my money...or she’ll come take me away... When I’m in need... please don’t let her. Yes she’s a triflin’

Everything goes black and we hear a piercing scream as …

 We hear...

 BARDI

At my wedding I want a diamond encrusted grill

I don’t care who died for me to get it

I don’t mind if I have to break a few bones

Bleed communities dry. I want my ice

To smile so bright it leaves your vision bespeckled, and throws you off center. Through this hazy gaze will you see me.

Imagine with me, in my ruby red crown so well fitted, the gems cut into my forehead

Leave their mark forever engrained in my skull. I want the guests to know

That I was wealthy enough and glamorous enough

Crown me like Christ in my thorny gem filled with damnation

Let the blood of capitalism wash down my body and bless my sins It cost somebody something to be this drippy.

Lights up on a bloody, dazzling Bardi. Stoic. Something has been cast out of her spirit. Exorcised for good

Pour the shambles, the plowing and destruction of our Mother Earth, the dangerous expeditions onto my being. I’ll tilt my bloody head to the sky and inhale the swarms of evil, it’s taste leaving me hungry for more.

Yank the precious pearls from the deep sea and string them around my neck so strong I am asphyxiated

I will don the emblem of capitalism, raise the flag high, pledge allegiance to the bag of the United States of America and to the racist republic for which it stands, one capitalist nation under god, indivisible, with liberating wealth and economic justice for all.

When you try to save me. Remember this is the life I begged for. I killed for. I settled into. I allowed to happen.

And when I gasp for my last breath, charge it to the card. Or add it to my debt to this society and rack up my cost to the planet.

And when you check my pulse that is difficult to reach past the jangling bracelets

Remind the mortician to declare it Death by ice storm

 An exorcism is complete. Bardi steps over a body on the ground, primps herself. She smiles. She changes the ppt slide

BARDI

Stars. High growth, high dependency. You should invest significantly in your stars and they have high future growth potential. With this in your portfolio you are guaranteed to increase your net worth and live a luxurious life.

Bardi sets to leave the stage, then realizes she can’t leave a dead body on stage. She drags it off

fin.