What we do is make advertisements that don’t act or feel like commercials, they’re more like entertainment- for brands that want and need video but can’t afford a media buy.

Quick and Dirty.  That’s our motto.  Through a network of New York City’s funniest, most amazing talent including actors, comedians, directors, writers, cinematographers, and producers, we aim to take products with very little advertising budgets and give them great visibility, buzz, and brand loyalty through our innovative, and awe-inspiring branded content.  We don’t place your product, we build content around it that drives people to buy—then we replicate it with future spots.

Think Saturday Night Live on the web, but not just entertainment for the sake of entertainment.  Think of it as an Advertisement that’s entertainment.   A singular, hilarious video that acts like a comedy sketch, but that ultimately is crafted around a product.  The brand gains loyalty, we gain loyalty, and the consumer gets a bellyache from laughter.  This is our mission.

If you’re looking to take a chance in the ever changing world of online content, look no further.

Sure, Throw Your Money In This ‘Hedge Fund’

by Jonathan Hludzinski on August 30th, 2009ShareThis

Do you know what a Hedge Fund is? I don’t. And neither do the boys at the Claude S. Dutchy, LLC hedge fund. But, damnit, they’re determined to make it rich enough to race Lamborghinis, orbit earth in space, swim with their pet mako sharks and have orgies! Or so, Claude says in episode two of this uneven, yet satisfying web series, Hedge Fund.

Creator, writer and director Chris Murray conceived the idea a couple of years ago, ‘while the economy was strong and money was flowing’ about four slackers without a clue who decide for no good reason to start a hedge fund. The boys operate out of their one bedroom apartment in Manhattan concocting angles to success that include uber-skinny jeans, croissandwiches and one bogus ten million dollar promissory note.

The brains behind the operation, Claude Thornbush, played by Tyler Evans, gets the bright idea in the premise pilot after overhearing a couple of real hedge funders discussing space trips, orgies and Lamborghini’s in the bathroom at the restaurant where he waits tables. Evans, it should be noted is the bread, butter and the glue of this show. Without trying to be hyperbolic, I’ll liken him to Will Ferrell both in his portrayal of a character with unfounded, yet unbounded confidence, and his comedic delivery. This guy is hilarious and one of the main reasons to watch the show.

Murray’s writing is one of the other reasons. The asscrack revealing skinny jeans in episode five that are so tight you can sit without needing a chair is a thing of genius. Great sight gag, and a true comment on our culture’s youthism. There are a lot of priceless pieces of writing throughout. One of my faves is when Frenchy, Phillipe Rochambeau, played nicely by Evan Neumann, tells Claude that , “In France I was a homosexual, but here, no more, “ in ep 7, after lifting Claude out of despair with a poem. Every ep has its gems and they are pretty easy to come by.

Skip Murphy, played by Timmy Cassese, is a somewhat dull character, however, which I won’t fault Cassese for, it just seems like there isn’t a whole lot for him to do. Chris Murray plays Dutch Alison and has a few funny beats throughout and a little more to do, but frankly everyone seems to stand in the shadow of Evans’s Claude Thornbush. And that’s okay, because that character is so big, he kind of needs this mild ornamentation to play against.

The two best eps in the so far seven ep series are four and five. Claude’s fake meeting on a park bench with the no-show investor Larry Zatharian had me rolling in ep four. And five is the one with the Jackass and Johnson skinny jeans. This ep also has a couple of standout cameos from Jay Della Valle playing a ‘Bad Boy’ who represents to the boys what skinny jeans can do for a man’s sex life; and Violet Krumbein as ‘Fashion Girl’, the bi-sexual disaffected store clerk kept me smiling throughout.

As for the technical side of things, the production quality is okay, not great, but not distracting. The sound could use a little evening out sometimes, which can be a bit annoying. But overall there’s a heart to the whole enterprise, from the site itself, which is clean, simple and easy to navigate, to the charm of the characters, their camaraderie and subtly wacky stories.

The rollout of these very watchable five to seven minute eps is a little odd as far as I can tell. Starting with a couple in March, two in April, one in May, one in June and the last one in August, it’s all pretty uneven. A little regularity might help build a consistent fan base.

It’s definitely worth checking out. There is something to watch here for sure with some sharp writing and very funny performances, hopefully with time they can iron out the glitches and turn it into what it promises to be, a great, not just good, web series.

Ich bin stehen in line for the electro-techno-pop club Pressure- auf der Meatpacker District- an uber cool place where the young und pretty faces have come all night the party to make! I have just arrived auf Berlin. I want to see Orlando Bloom and Johnny Depp und drool am my silk blouse, but this line is sooo long. Inefficiency. Then I see them, suddenly, I am curious. Three gorgeous men auf fashions of home, hipsters from die Mitte am Berlin. They can’t be New Yorkers, are they? I am full of giggles. I approach, cautiously, I think I see Nicolas Cage, where I immediately almost faint, but he isn’t the movie star who races fast autos in movieland! “Hey, you, Nick Cage,” I scream, “What do you do in New York City?” He makes a turn around. It is not Nicholas Cage, “Listen, lady, the name’s Thornbush. Claude Thornbush. And we’re a Hedge Fund, but people mistaken us for models all the time. You’re not the first.” I giggles again. I am not a lady!

Zie other one, Dutch his name, he turns to me, “Do you like knockwurst?” But of course I do. I feel like having a Bavarian sausage now, mit mustard und sauerkraut! And then I see it, his sausage is inside of the pants! SO GEIL! I turn back quickly, rosey cheeks, and speak to them. Guys, I say, we can make millions of money auf these pants. Men in Berlin will line up along the FreidrichStrasse and buy diese! They will be in the Couture houses, Marc Jacobs will copy, even Hugo, Mr. Boss will want these pants for the Spring! Dann it happens. Skip, the really cute one, klein und beefy like ein Hungarian train conductor (secret crush), he turn to me and say, “They’re already in all those places, lady, we’re getting VIP service inside this hot club. That’s how we do at Claude S. Dutchy, LLC!” I have giggles about this, again. Was ist ein hedge fund?

Ich habe no idea what just happened! Claude S. Who? But for all my readers, I have finally found die cutting hedge fashions in New York CIty, auf Meatpacker. Tomorrow I go to MOMA, and then we eat at Freeman’s Alley where all zie models eat on rabbit shank and drink framboise! But what memory I will keep most? The men of Claude S. Dutchy standing in line of the Pressure Hot Club, of course, the one en diese fashions of der Fatherland! Watch out Berlin! Watch out Hamburg! Watch out Dusseldorf! Amerikan tight pants are coming to the streets! Und Karl, I have found new models for the Spring season!

Renni Hansel Ramstein
OG Deutsch Magazine

Port Canaveral, Florida- As the closing bell tolls on Wall Street and perpetually pale financiers begin the long commute home, heads hung low, calculating the day’s losses, an unlikely trio is breathing in the dying embers of another sublime sunset. To the north, past a grouping of day laborers fishing snook from the shallows, stand the hulking steel sides of panic-attack inducing, all-inclusive, floating vacation oases. And to the southeast, over acres of protected everglades and decaying suburbs on stilts, the launch pad of NASA’s Space Shuttle Discovery idles, like an antique rocking chair, waiting to sling the next astronauts into orbit. Wedged between these two giant symbols of American ingenuity and capitalism, on a narrow spit of beach, three dreamers sit, swatting red ants away from their legs. As they like to put it, they are “Breaking Canaveral ’09.” This is not Carnival, nor Cannes nor Cancun, but to the visionaries at Claude S. Dutchy, LLC, a Brooklyn based Hedge Fund notoriously “full of bull,” Port Canaveral is paradise found.

Covered in a towel, and over-tanned, Claude Thornbush smiles from under a wide brimmed hat one would see in the Australian Outback, “Our goal is to fly into a zero gravity vector someday, and we love watching the ships come in, and I hear through the grapevine, that there’s plenty of boob down on Main street.” Skip Murphy chimes in, holding a dying manta ray by the tail, “The water is real cold and green, I saw an alligator eat a white bird, and that Mexican guy over there gave us a fish. I’m going to cook it.” Off to the side, a drunken Dutch Alison sits on a surf board, laughing, “That is the weakest cruise ship break I’ve ever ridden. A two year-old could surf this shit.” The three partners have their own unique personality traits- something advantageous in an industry fraught with high expectation and greed- but on vacation, they are united as one. Muses Thornbush, “We’re like a God head or a Napoleonic army or something.”

Perhaps it is modesty that strikes one first, or more accurately, poverty, or their beyond-golden tans, but one thing stands out amongst the Styrofoam and flotsam of the inlet. The three partners of Claude S. Dutchy, LLC, are indeed ahead of the times. Pointing to a cumbersome cell phone, Thornbush states, “We like to mix business with pleasure. I got this thing hooked right into our office. If somebody calls, our European associate, Phillipe Rochambeau is at home, manhandling the lines of communication.” And what happens if it actually rings? “Well,” smiles Murphy, “that’s when this trip gets paid for.” A fading Alison walks over and slams his surf board down indignantly, “Aah F%$#@ it,” he shouts, “I’m going back to the van to huff some diesel and spread some cream on this taint rash.”

Port Canaveral may be the most depressing Spring Break destination on the eastern seaboard, but it seems, at least for these mavericks, it’s all smiles. Claude Thornbush sits back and dives his fist into a bag off sweet habanero corn nuts. “We’re hedging this vacation against the recession. Damn it these are hot!” The smell of burnt sea life wafts to the edge of the water. In the parking lot, against the sharp edge of a palm shadow, Skip Murphy stands at the van, banging a metal pipe against its hood. For a brief second, it sounds like a bell, an echo perhaps, carried on the dark wings of cormorants from Wall Street, with a message of doom. But it quickly becomes apparent that it’s just metal on metal, the Claude S. Dutchy, LLC version of the dinner bell. In these troubled economic times, it’s good to know at least somebody’s got an appetite for hope.

Perpetually Tan Magazine

“Hedge fund hotshot Robert Mercer files lawsuit over $2M model train, accusing builder of overcharge”

A hedge fund hotshot’s lawsuit over a toy railroad setup sounds more like the great train robbery than Thomas the Tank Engine.

Robert Mercer is accusing the builder of overcharging him by nearly $2 million for the elaborate HO-scale model railroad constructed and installed in his Long Island mansion.

Mercer, 62, contends in a federal suit that the correct amount due for labor and materials is more like $704,669, according to the complaint filed in Central Islip Federal Court. Mercer’s lawyer Steven Pinks confirmed the figures are not typos, but declined to comment further.

Mercer filed notice Monday seeking a default judgment against RailDreams Custom Model Railroad Design, in Michigan, and the company’s president, Richard Taylor, for failing to answer the suit.

Taylor expressed shock over the legal maneuver because he thought they were going to settle the matter out of court.

“He [Mercer] is a hedge fund guy, part of the reason why the country is in the situation it’s in,” Taylor told the Daily News.

The suit accuses Taylor of padding the bill “wrongfully and fraudulently,” but he countered that like many large transportation projects, the costs ballooned as a result of the buyer’s demands.

Reluctant to discuss details of the railroad set, Taylor said it depicts a specific location in New York State with museum-quality detail and is about half the size of a basketball court.

“To the discerning model railroader, a finished RailDreams layout is truly a unique work of art,” the company’s Web site crows.

Taylor said a team of craftsmen was dispatched from its headquarters in Lake Linden, Mich., to Long Island to finish the job while Mercer’s home in Mount Sinai, L.I., was being built. “We had to get it done for his daughter’s wedding,” Taylor said.

-BY John Marzulli
The Daily News

What we can’t believe is why Robert Mercer didn’t make the train set as big as a football field.  Half a basketball court?  Come on Bobby!  We’d make that train track as big and as badass as any model train track eyes have ever seen.  Ours would probably go underground.
- CSD, LLC

And here’s what some are saying about HEDGE FUND:

• Dale Harpsicord of The Greenback Century calls Hedge Fund "A Fundancial Laugh Riot.
   I shit my pants...TWICE!" FOUR STARS

• Helene Crossarrow-Hernandez of Nickels and Sense raves, "A true orignial.
  Hedge Fund stayed with me for days, even after I got laid off from this newspaper!"

• Mortimer Schwarzbaum of Bazooka Capital spits, "Who the F@#$^ are these guys!
  They've made me want to raise my fees and say to hell with it all!

• Robbie Tony,  New York Times Best-Selling Author and Motivational Speaker, says,
  "If these guys can do it, anybody can!  They're living proof of Blood, Sweat,
  Tears, and Personal Knowledge."

Brooklyn- Hedge Funds, that once ubiquitous term, which rose meteorically through the eighties and nineties to become the Kings of Wall Street, look more like rooks in a crumbling game of chess- once subordinate vassals now running arms akimbo to the hills to rule themselves. With the majority of investors sitting on the side lines waiting out the financial crisis, Hedge Funds are losing profits, clients, and in many cases, themselves. And with the prospect of the Federal Government not only taking over majority shares of private banks, but regulating many of the private investment vehicles, many equity managers are witnessing the death of the once kingly, elitist, deregulated, and mythical Hedge Fund.

Au contraire mofraire.

Four unremarkable, perhaps dopey, and seemingly under qualified financiers would have you believe otherwise. The partners of Claude S. Dutchy, LLC firmly assert that there is, in fact, no better time than now to start a Hedge Fund. This infectious optimism is quite succinctly folded into their motto, “Full of Bull in a Bear Market,” like buttercream in a nutcake.

Sitting on the only couch in the offices of Claude S. Dutchy, LLC, a pre-war tenement with cracked paint and uneven floors, one thing becomes apparent. This Hedge Fund is not your typical “white-shoe” firm, and they’ve got innovation written all over their faces. Eschewing a traditional office, Claude Thornbush, Skip Murphy, Dutch Alison, and Phillipe Rochambeau have transformed their one-bedroom, Williamsburg apartment into an almost seamless, utopian office environment where no one seems to sleep- there is neither space nor time for it. The walls are adorned not with accolades and certificates of financial achievement, but with tigers, lions, and a swimming baby elephant. As CEO Claude Thornbush beams, “We’re in the Serengeti here, alone, frightened, but with that feeling of isolation and survival. We want to get up, polish off that antelope carcass from the night before and maybe get some coffee, read the paper, look up some stuff, and then make a call or two.”

They may not seem like your traditional Hedge Fund partners- no one who works at the Fund has a post-graduate degree, nor a particular financial lineage- but one thing is for certain. They are long on themselves. As Dutch Alison put it, “We are poised to fill the widening private equity void and perhaps become The Last of the Hedge Funds. Like Chingascook, the last Mohican, circling with that blue, wooden axe to that badass music, slicing Mogwai in half and kicking his body off the cliffs to that Netherdom below.” After spending a quiet afternoon with the Claude S. Dutchy Partners, LLC, one thing seems inevitable. They live together as one, they believe in the blood, sweat, and tears of dreams. And they are ready to be, if not the princes of finance, the warriors in that proverbial Serengeti where kings once reigned.

– Gene Wilderbarn
Hedge Funder Magazine