Pitz Stop: Reading from #JFTRE2

Dive deep into the cautionary tale of Penny Pitz—one-time idealist, Ivy League double-major, and crypto casualty. Read by Mookie Spitz from Jonnie Fazoolie & the Transfinite Reality Engine, enter the world of a Gen Z heroine whose hunger to matter gets chewed up and spit out by a world that rewards hustle over honesty and hype over substance.

Fresh out of Brown, Penny's activist zeal collided with a broken job market and a social media echo chamber that turned outrage into inertia. But salvation—or delusion—arrived via San Francisco’s crypto cowboys: former Jane Street traders with too much weed and too much venture capital. Penny joined Alhambra Research, a startup drunk on libertarian dreams and fake tokens, where she fumbled her way into a marketing empire and accidentally helped build a monster.

What follows is an insider’s view of a crypto boom built on empty promises, celebrity endorsements, and Sam Bankman Greed—her video game–playing, khaki-shorts–wearing boss whose charisma masked criminal mismanagement. Penny rode the wave from sticky childhood stars on her bedroom ceiling to stadium deals and jet-set parties... until it all came crashing down.

With subpoenas replacing swag bags and brunch gossip replacing billion-dollar deals, Penny returns home—humiliated, aimless, and surrounded by sisters who can't decide whether to mock or coddle her. Stuck in arrested development and grieving a version of herself that might never have existed, she’s left asking the hardest question of all: was any of it real?

This is more than a fall from grace—it's a dissection of the entire cultural moment: girlboss feminism warped by greed, millennial burnout weaponized by capitalism, and the emptiness that comes after peak success. "Pitz Stop" isn’t just Penny’s pause—it’s a generational reckoning.

The Novel

Jonnie Fazoolie & the Transfinite Reality Engine

First Reading

Alice Unchained

Next Reading

Billion Dollar Babies