Rhoneisms

If we embrace the fact that no one can or should ever care about the health of our passions as much as we do, the practical decisions that help ensure Our Good Thing stays alive can become as “simple” as a handful of proven patterns—work hard, stay awake, fail well, hang with smart people, shed bullshit, say “maybe,” focus on action, and always always commit yourself to a bracing daily mixture of all the courage, honesty, and information you need to do something awesome—discover whatever it’ll take to keep your nose on the side of the ocean where the fresh air lives. This is huge.

Dear 18 Year Old Self,

Read this and follow every single word.

Wait, scratch that. You’ll turn out OK. Not great, but OK (trust me, I know).

Instead, give this to your kids so they have a sliver of a chance at turning out even better than you.

Love,

Yourself

And no more of that talk about “the tragedy of fame.” The tragedy of fame is when no one shows up and you’re singing to the cleaning lady in some empty joint that hasn’t seen a paying customer since Saint Swithin’s day. And you’re nowhere near that; you’re top dog on the top rung of a tall ladder called Stardom, which in latin means thanks-to-the-fans who were there when it was lonely.

Frank Sinatra rips George Michael a new one. Perhaps my favorite letter of note yet. Which is saying a lot because every single thing posted is a treasure.

Also, I would do boundless and unseemly things to spend one minute as the cleaning lady at either of these gigs. 

“Like, I don’t have a toilet at the moment. My house is just a wooden box. I mean I am planning to get a toilet at some point. But for now I have to go to the neighbours. I threw it all out.”

(As he says this, I’m wondering whether this is just another of the parts Kartheiser might be trying on for size, but to prove the point he later takes me back to his house, which really is an empty wooden box, a small one-room bungalow on a nondescript Hollywood street and indeed it has no lavatory.) Is that a Buddhist thing, I wonder, or an early midlife crisis thing?

“It started a couple of years ago,” he says. “It was in response to going to these Golden Globe type events and they just give you stuff. You don’t want it. You don’t use it. And then Mad Men started to become a success on a popular level and people started sending me stuff, just boxes of shit. Gifts for every holiday, clothes. One day, I looked around and thought ‘I don’t want this stuff, I didn’t ask for it’. So I started giving it to friends or charity stores, or if it is still in its box I might sell it for a hundred bucks. I liked it so I didn’t stop.”

Does he have a bed?

“I do,” he concedes, “but that might go…

I’m almost ashamed to say I have not seen a single episode of Mad Men but, I like this guy. He may be bat-shit crazy extreme but he seems like my kind of guy.

Adding a second layer to this in the form of a separate brand name only adds unnecessary confusion. If I had employees, that’s a different story, but right now it is just me. I am the business, I am the brand. And so, for the foreseeable future I will be working under my own name.

Pat Dryburgh is going rogue!

So happy to see him make this move. He is a man of many and immeasurable talents who I am sure will be in high demand. Also, I plan to make some more commentary on the decision quoted above, as it is something that I faced with my business. I will likely do so over at A Better Freelancer.

On the other hand, I’m really busy, and I ought to be writing, so pricing appearances somewhere between ridiculously high and obscenely high helps to discourage most of the people who want me to come and talk to them. Which I could make a full time profession, if I didn’t say ‘no’ a lot.

Love this.

See also: Bad Correspondent by Neal Stephenson my favorite passage of which is:

The quality of my e-mails and public speaking is, in my view, nowhere near that of my novels. So for me it comes down to the following choice: I can distribute material of bad-to-mediocre quality to a small number of people, or I can distribute material of higher quality to more people. But I can’t do both; the first one obliterates the second.

My friend Randy on the beauty of the power nap. I have long known the truth about the restorative nature of short naps but have never been good about taking or making the time to actually do so. 

One of my favorite short nap stories of all is that of the artist Salvador Dali who would recline on the chaise in his studio with a large metal spoon in his outstretched hand. As soon as he fell asleep his hand would drop, hit the cobblestone floor, and the clang would awaken him to paint on for several more hours. Rumor has held that he would often do this for days instead of actual night time sleep. Which may explain some of his paintings. 

See also:

Napstyles of the Rich & Famous | 43 Folders

Merlin’s wonderful little post on famous power nappers.