Lululemon’s Problem with Flabby Thighs and Corporate Flubs





Our house is infested with reusable 30% post-consumer fiber Lululemon tote bags that say shit like: “breathe deeply and appreciate the moment” and “do one thing a day that scares you” and “the pursuit of happiness is the source of all unhappiness” and “dance, sing, floss and travel” and – most aptly stated as relating to this post – “life is full of setbacks.”  (For the record, I refuse to leave the house with one of these; my wife found me a bag that says “my reusable tote bag makes me better than you,” which I prefer because it gets right to the point). 

Lululemon is not a Buddhist monastery.  It’s a publicly traded company with stores in high end malls that sells exorbitantly priced yoga wear, mostly to women.  They came up with the truly genius idea of replacing their regular shopping bags with reusable ones, which, like swallowed gum, take 7 years to degrade and disappear.  The result is that, if you travel in any area with a critical mass of professional women with gym memberships, you cannot escape the bags.  They are everywhere. 

I have a Lululemon shirt, and it’s pretty nice.  The quality is one small notch higher than a similar shirt you could find at any sporting goods store for 25% of the price. What you’re paying for when you buy Lululemon stuff – the difference between the $2.75 production cost of a pair of yoga pants and the $95.00 purchase price – is image.  That image produced $1.3 billion in revenue in fiscal 2013.  And so, of course, it is an image that is very very carefully managed. 

But alas, there was a problem with some Lululemon yoga pants pilling and wearing thin in the thigh-rubbing-together region and the founder, CEO, chair of the board and owner of 29% of the company’s stock, Chip Wilson, had to go and say that the problem was not in the construction of the pants, but rather that “some women’s bodies just actually don’t work” with the pants.  Oops.

This raised a bit of a PR problem for Lululemon because rubbing thighs is something that happens with pretty much all women who (a) actually move their legs while wearing yoga pants and (b) weigh more than 85 pounds.  In other words, per a public statement that went immediately viral, the entirety of Lululemon’s client base, other than Gisele and several pre-pubescent girls, is too blubbery-in-the-groin for its pants.   

I wonder who the head of corporate communications is who got the call in the middle of the night that the top dog of the company had just gotten on TV and told pretty much all women that they are too fat to wear Lululemon pants.  Some turds  just can’t be polished.  There are some utterances that even the most talented spin doctors on earth cannot work with.  Facebook and the blogosphere erupted.  A trial was held on Morning Joe.  The fit women of these United States made their voices heard.  Chip Wilson had to go.  And so he did.  He made the TV rounds and offered and almost comically grudging apology.  The company condemned him forcefully and made it clear that chaffed thighs are noble and beautiful and at the very core of Lululemon’s most deeply held values.

Chip Wilson was stripped of all of his titles.  And a sigh of relief was expressed by the nation’s high-earning yoga devotees now that they could recommence shopping at Lululemon with a clear conscience.  But the purge was not complete, and the end of the boycott not entirely justified.  Chip Wilson retained one title – that of 29% shareholder.  That’s not something a board can take away.  And so whatever replacements have been brought in and corporate communications issued, the fact remains that 29% of all value and goodwill created by Lululemon’s pant sales and Eastern philosophy slogans belongs to a guy who has not a modicum of respect for the clients that patronize his company. 

It’s hard to shop based on politics and beliefs.  Domino’s is anti-abortion.  Chick-fil-A doesn’t like gays.  Hobby Lobby won’t carry Hanukkah stuff.  And Lululemon thinks your thighs are too fat to make its pants last.  What’s a consumer to do?  Choose your battles, I guess.  Write a scathing comment on Facebook.  Vote with your feet.  At a minimum, remember that a corporate image is just an image.  Candid words are deeper than PR.  And you really are just a number – a nicely toned, spiritually calm athlete with a credit card.   

Pat Sajak Speaks Truth to Power

 

The TVs at the old-guy-bar around the corner where I sometimes go are usually tuned to Celtics or Bruins or Red Sox or Patriots games.  When no Boston team is playing, some more obscure sport may be on.  Except if it’s a weeknight between 7:00 and 7:30 EST.  Then it’s Wheel of Fortune time.  The bar quiets down a few notches, all attention is directed to the screens, and the guys settle in to experience Pat Sajak and Vanna White working their magic.

Wheel of Fortune has been on in one incarnation or another since 1975.  Pat Sajak started hosting in 1982 and has been there ever since.  When I was a kid, I remember the system being that the winner got cash credit for all of his points and then got to spend it all in different showcases.  If he had won a big pile of cash, he’d say “ooh, OK, Pat, I’d like the pop-up camper for $12,000.”  And then work his way down… “uuh, let’s see, how ‘bout the combination TV / VCR for $750 and the camping stove for $150.”  Then he’d really hit the dregs… “mmmm, I guess I’ll take the porcelain kitty cat for $35.”  That system got scaled back.  Maybe it was too complicated.  Now winners just get the cash.

Wheel of Fortune is precisely, meticulously calibrated, like a slot machine, to operate in the brain space between “level 1” and “coma.”  The word puzzles are easy enough that you can usually figure them out eventually, but hard enough that you feel pretty damn happy and smart when you do.  The wheel spins hypnotically around.  Vanna glides across the floor, waving her hand across the letters, which ding and light up on a screen (she used to have to actually turn the letters around, but I guess that was a little too jarring to the audience, or maybe Vanna developed some kind of letter-spinning repetitive stress injury).  Every microbe of Pat’s movements and wardrobe and gelled hair and sunken eyes seem tuned to the same comatose wavelength.  He’s like a human game show lullaby, gently easing 10 million nightly viewers (highest of any show in the nation) into a vegetative, millimeter-short-of-a-coma half-sleep.  If aliens or Nazis or the brain police were trying to figure out how to descend on our country and force our citizens into submission, the best time to do it would unquestionably be during the half hour each night when a meaningful percentage of our citizens is drooling in front of Wheel of Fortune. 

As the staying power of Wheel of Fortune attests (as does the $8 million annual salary to which The Market has determined Pat Sajak is entitled), the show is onto something.  Its appeal lies in its very blandness.  The sentences that come out of Pat’s mouth during the show are so vacuous and milquetoast that they barely even qualify as actual human communication.  The world is scary and dangerous.  Just outside, there’s a war on Christmas and the gays are trying to force their agenda on peoples’ grandkids and Facebook is trying to steal their identity and the blacks are moving in right next door.  But all is calm and well on Wheel of Fortune.  Nothing there is provocative or shocking.  It’s not scary.  And it sure as hell, first and foremost, down the very core of its DNA, is not political. 

Or so I thought until one night a few months ago when I got to witness Pat Sajak bust out of his beige vanilla shell and speak truth to power.  The show that night was being filmed in New York City around the time Mayor Bloomberg had proposed a ban on sugary drinks larger than 16 ounces.  After some white noise banter with a contestant, Pat made his move.  He reached down behind the wheel, pulled out a big plastic cup with a lid and straw, took a big pull, and said something like “mmmm. I think I’ll just enjoy a sip of my huuuuge drink.” 

Holy crap!  Kid gloves off!  Gauntlet thrown down!  Shit was getting’ real!  Pat was going to be silenced no more!  And his statement to the world was this: You can say what you will.  Do what you want.  But you will have to pry my frosty extra-large sugary beverage from my Cold. Dead. Hands.

It was all done with a wink and a smile.  But the message was loud and clear.  The effete east coast liberal elite are making their move.  First they’ll come for your 36 ounce Slurpee.  Next it’ll be your gun.  And before you can say oy vay izmir, there will be death camps in Dayton where anyone who doesn’t shop at Zabars or read The New Yorker will be gassed.  Pat Sajak finally spoke his mind.  And while starvation and AIDS and human trafficking and tsunamis are all unfortunate, the one issue that really needs to be addressed – the most dire, pressing issue of our times – is the preservation of every American’s God given right to ease his fat, hulking ass into his EZ-chair, click on his 80 inch television and wind down with an icy-cold 40 ounce Dr. Pepper. 

People used to make fun of Pat Sajak.  But now we know what he’s really made of.  He’s a warrior, a visionary, a defender of the downtrodden.  I call on Pat to lead the charge, to free the masses from their shackles, to rise up against tyranny and oppression.  He may need to find a different medium, though.  His troops may be watching, but they may have trouble summoning the energy to do much more than take a long pull of cool, refreshing  soda and say to their spouses, “guy shoulda bought a vowel.”  

I LOVE NEW YORK! Best Marathon Ever. Best Experience Ever.

Best Marathon Ever. 

Best Experience Ever.

 

 

Until last weekend, whenever anyone would ask me which of the marathons I had run I liked the best, I would always answer, truthfully, that I really couldn’t say, that they were all different, that I liked such and such qualities about this one and this and that about another one.  No more.  The New York marathon is my favorite.  Hands down.  No contest.  It was the best marathon I’ve run and one of the best all around experiences I’ve had.  Ever. 

First, a little about New Yorkers.  The stereotype about New Yorkers is that they’re loud and rude and in your face.  The loud and in your face part is most definitely true.  But I think it’s based on a certain comfort that comes from living in a place that’s so dense and so full of different kinds of people.  If you’re not worried about people thinking less of you because you have a different opinion, then why hold back?  Why waste everyone’s time with decorum and insinuation?  Just throw it all out there.  Once you scratch a tiny bit below the surface, it becomes clear that New Yorkers are as kind and friendly and caring as any group anywhere.  And when all of the New York noise and energy is focused on something as positive as a marathon, the result is something truly spectacular. 

Each runner in the New York marathon was assigned to one of three “villages” near the start, next to Fort Wadsworth in Staten Island.  To get there, you could either take a bus from the various boroughs or the Staten Island Ferry from Manhattan.  I took the ferry.  The experience was surreal.  Before sunrise, thousands of runners, all wearing fancy running shoes and ratty, used throw-away clothes from the Salvation Army (to keep warm before the start), streamed silently up the escalators to the ferry terminal.  The atmosphere was calm but intense, with everyone excited in anticipation of a long race, but measured, knowing that the first runners wouldn’t be leaving the corrals for over three hours.  The ferry had a police escort boat next to it.  The sun started to rise while we were crossing the river.  The Manhattan skyline and the Statue of Liberty were beautiful. 

The start villages were like carnivals.  Thousands of people milled around, stretched, had snacks, waited in line for the port-o-potties.  Music and race day rules repeated in loops on giant video screens.  Dunkin Donuts gave out free coffee and warm, cotton winter hats. (Genius marketing move – brainwash people when they’re cold and tired and psychologically vulnerable.  Whenever I see a Dunkin now, which, in Boston, is usually about 35 times a day, I feel warm and happy and like I want to spend all my money on breakfast sandwiches and munchkins). 

The course started at the base of the Verrazano Bridge in Staten Island, crossed into Brooklyn, went through all of Brooklyn and a chunk of Queens, over the 59^th Street Bridge (now renamed the Ed Koch Bridge) into Manhattan, all the way up 1^st Ave. into the Bronx, back down 5^th Ave., into Central Park at 89^th Street, out onto Central Park South, back into Central Park at Columbus Circle, and ended near 69^th Street. 

50,304 people ran this year’s New York marathon.  And it was estimated that 2 million people were out watching along the course.  What that meant from a runner’s perspective is that every foot of the course, with the exception of the bridges, was lined with spectators standing shoulder to shoulder, sometimes four people deep.  There were bands on almost every block – so many that the music often ran together and you couldn’t even make out who was playing what.  DJs, folk bands, metal bands (one orthodox Jewish one), several Grateful Dead cover bands, drum circles, a gospel rhythm section playing a slow jam outside of a church (if you’re ever going to convert me, that’s the way to do it), bluegrass jam circles, marching bands, folk singers, karaoke, reggae bands, and lots of good ol’ banging on garbage can lids. The noise level ranged from loud to complete sensory overload.   

The spirit and energy from the crowds was like nothing I have ever experienced.  Several times, I was so moved by the almost hysterical emotion coming from the crowds, that I gasped and teared up and had trouble catching my breath.  The power of New York crowds turning their focus on runners slogging through the streets was overwhelming. No polite clapping and quiet approval here.  Thousands upon thousands of people, block after block after block were just letting it all hang out.  People screamed at individual runners, whether they knew them or not.  “DAAAAVVVVVE, you GO!” “Oh YEAH lady with the flower print tights, you KNOW you’re looking GOOOOOD!” “Oh my GAWD you all are KICKIN AAAAASSSSSS!”  A yuppie with a sport jacket and loafers was jumping up and down so hard that his cell phone dropped out of his pocket and smashed on the street.  Hipsters lost their cool and screamed like little kids.  In Central Park South, almost at mile 26, when the runners were out of gas and really looking ragged, the crowd was still deafening.  People on the sidelines looked so genuinely concerned and proud and yearning, it felt like every one of them knew each runner like family and had some deep, personal stake in helping him reach the finish. 

After the race, volunteers draped bright yellow fleece ponchos over the runners to keep them warm in the crisp November afternoon.  They were like angels.  Walking down the Upper West Side, strangers said congratulations.  The barista at a Starbucks next to the Wall Street bull gave me a free coffee.  The bell captain at the Doubletree Hotel where we were staying was so excited to see me come back after the race he was almost screaming at me – “oh MAN, you ran 26 miles!? That is CRAZY! MAN!”  After dinner at a fancy restaurant in Chelsea, the waiter brought me a desert, on the house, with “congratulations” written in chocolate on the side of the plate. 

I don’t know if an experience like this could happen anywhere else.  New Yorkers do things big and they do them loud.  I love running because it’s so simple and natural and good.  And to run a race where the human spirit is so powerful and distilled and focused upon something so positive and happy – the feeling is almost beyond description.  Pure elation. People can do horrible things to one another.  But they can also be so good to one another and so supportive that your faith in the whole human race can’t help but be uplifted.  Thanks for the show, New York!  You sure know how to make a guy feel good.

Here’s Alec Baldwin talking about the New York Marathon.  Whoda ever thunk this guy could get me all emotional.

http://vimeo.com/28827733

Here’s a touching video of Meb Keflezighi talking about breaking down and having to walk during the race.  Depending on how you look at it, you could say that I beat him.  Technically, he finished the race 1 hour and 23 minutes faster than I did.  But he had to walk a little starting at mile 19, and I didn’t have to walk until mile 24. It’s really a tough course. 

http://www.flotrack.org/coverage/250963-New-York-City-Marathon-2013/video/723689-Emotional-Meb-Keflezighi-after-NYC-Marathon-2013

Here’s a documentary about Fred Lebow, the founder of the New York Marathon.  He was just a weird, quirky dude, and not a very good runner, who started organizing events, which morphed into the marathon.  The course starting going through all five boroughs, including the Bronx, in the late ‘70s.  Not a time when skinny white runner dudes usually ran voluntarily through the Bronx.    

http://www.fredlebowmovie.com/

OMG! Abercrombie SO does not care about justice for fat kids. LOL!

 

Most of the industrialized world has recently been shocked!, furious! and disgusted! with Abercrombie’s CEO, Mike Jeffries.  Jeffries started as CEO in 2008 and the general consensus seems to be that he’s a control freak, a recluse and basically just a dick.  No big news there.  He also looks really creepy, with a Botoxed, statutory-rape-casual kind of style.  Again, not particularly shocking for a company specializing in selling g-strings to ‘tweens, manning its store entrances with young, hairless six pack ab models and whose advertising is all unabashedly child porn-esque.  There’s been some low-level grumbling about all of this over the years.  People got a little bent out of shape when Jeffries said that “people said we were cynical, that we were sexualizing little girls. But you know what? I still think those are cute underwear for little girls. And I think anybody who gets on a bandwagon about thongs for little girls is crazy. Just crazy!”  But it all really blew up more recently when Jeffries, talking about Abercrombie’s target customers, said this:

“In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids…. Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don't belong [in our clothes], and they can't belong.” 

And this:

“We hire good-looking people in our stores. Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don't market to anyone other than that.”

No-one could fathom, it seemed, that a company in this enlightened day and age would actually purposefully snub a whole slice of the population.  Change.org collected 68,000 signatures on a petition demanding that “that Mike Jeffries issue a formal apology and Abercrombie start to embrace and make products for all body types.”  The Women and Girls Foundation sent a delegation of girls to Abercrombie’s headquarters in Ohio, who met with (and were later completely and profoundly ignored by) Abercrombie’s top management.  The media was outraged at the injustice of it all.  The blogosphere went nuts.  Coverage of Abercrombie’s transgressions was ubiquitous.

Two things struck me about this epic controversy.  First, Jeffries’ “scandalous” statements, while blunter than how a CEO is supposed to speak in mixed company, were hardly distinguishable from how Abercrombie has been describing its business for years to its investors.  And second, the protests and petitions and media coverage and outrage that followed Mike Jeffries’ statements did more to bolster the image Abercrombie has been trying to nurture than just about anything Abercrombie could have done on its own.

Given a little more time to polish and wordsmith, here’s how Abercrombie describes its business in its annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission:

The bread and butter of the brand is Abercrombie & Fitch:

“Rooted in East Coast traditions and Ivy League heritage, Abercrombie & Fitch is the essence of privilege and casual luxury. The Adirondacks supply a clean inspiration to this preppy, youthful All-American lifestyle. A combination of classic and sexy creates a charged atmosphere that is confident and just a bit provocative. Idolized and respected, Abercrombie & Fitch is timeless and always cool.”

For the younger market, there’s Abercrombie Kids: 

Same idea, except with a focus on the “privilege and prestigious East Coast prep schools” instead of “Ivy League heritage.”  “Abercrombie kids aspire to be like their older sibling, Abercrombie & Fitch. The perfect combination of maturity and mischief, abercrombie kids are the signature of All-American cool.”

For West Coast wannabes, there’s Hollister:

“the fantasy of Southern California. It’s all about hot lifeguards and beautiful beaches. Young and fun, with a sense of humor, Hollister never takes itself too seriously. Hollister’s laidback lifestyle and All-American image is timeless and effortlessly cool. Hollister brings Southern California to the world.”

And then, of course, getting back to the ‘tween g-strings, there’s Gilly Hicks:

“the cheeky cousin of Abercrombie & Fitch. Inspired by the free spirit of Sydney, Australia, Gilly Hicks makes the hottest Push ‘Em Up bras and the cutest Down Undies for young, naturally beautiful, confident girls. Carefree and undeniably pretty, Gilly Hicks is the All-American brand with a Sydney sensibility.” 

Mike Jeffries’ statement that “a lot of people don't belong [in our clothes], and they can't belong,” is just the flip side of the same vacuous marketing gibberish used in the Company’s annual reports.  

Abercrombie says that its marketing strategy “emphasizes the senses to reinforce the aspirational lifestyle represented by each brand.”  No different than any mid-market mainstream fashion company.  The physical thing being sold is just low-quality generic-looking junk.  What’s really being sold is an image.  The word is sprinkled throughout all of Abercrombie’s annual reports: “aspirational,” “aspirational,” “aspirational.”   Any protester who is offended by Jeffries saying that some people just “can’t belong” has already drank the Kool-Aid and lost the battle.  If you think it’s true, you’ve bought the Abercrombie hype.  It’s not that Abercrombie sells to kids that actually are “confident,” “effortlessly cool” and “young [and] naturally beautiful.”  It sells to every awkward kid within 100 miles of a shopping mall, every zitty dufus who wants to be all those things.  Everyone!

When Abercrombie officers and shareholders read about all the protests and petitions and media coverage, they must be beside themselves with joy.  For a company whose entire business model is dependent on creating an air of exclusivity, what better brand reinforcement could there possibly be than a loud chorus of people demanding that they be more inclusive?  Every demand that Abercrombie change its ways, every angry letter, every ranting blog and every store occupation is an affirmation that Abercrombie has the nation’s attention and a marketing strategy that couldn’t be working better.

Mike Jeffries is creepy and the Abercrombie ads are gross and sleazy.  But Abercrombie is doing what companies do – trying to get attention and making money.  And those who are screaming the loudest against it are doing the most to keep the aspirational image alive. 

 

(After leafing through all the pop-culture fury, here’s what Abercrombie glances at with a smile)

Why I Will Never Buy Sushi at Walgreens

Why I Will Never Buy Sushi at Walgreens:

Reflections on Modern Retail and the Disgusting Human Body

A new flagship Walgreens just opened near my office in Downtown Crossing, Boston.  For a long time, a huge Borders store was the anchor tenant for the area.  I’m not usually much of a booster of big box chain stores, but when the Borders chain closed (riding the wave towards new preferences in media consumption and general illiteracy), I was sad.  If you’ve received a card or present from me in the past decade, it came from the Downtown Crossing Borders.  After Borders closed, there was lots of buzz about what exciting new development would take its place.  A bar and restaurant complex?  A combination theater / bowling alley?  A concert hall that could kick off the Downtown Crossing social and cultural renaissance? 

No. A Walgreens.  To be fair, it’s a really big, really nice Walgreens.  A flagship store.  You’re not supposed to go there to shop so much as to have a retail experience.  They’re marketing a lifestyle. 

There’s a sushi bar at the new Walgreens.  It looks fine.  Pretty nice and sleek, actually.  There was nothing overtly disturbing-looking about the sushi itself.  But still.  I will never, ever buy Walgreens Sushi.  If I were relaxing in my office lunchroom some afternoon, dipping a piece of kappa maki roll in my soy sauce and wasabi, someone would inevitably say, “hey, that looks good, where’d you get it?  From that new raw bar down on State Street?”  And then I’d have to say, “no, Walgreens.”  And that’s just not right. 

I can’t quite put my finger on why the idea of Walgreens sushi feels so very wrong.  Maybe it has something to do with the general nature of a drugstore.  The flagship Walgreens has three-story-high ceilings and beautiful stonework and great lighting.  They sell Boston souvenirs and small appliances and fro-yo and craft beers.  And there’s even a little museum in a former bank vault in the back about the history of downtown.  The whole experience is supposed to feel fresh and fun and vibrant.  And it sort of does.  But still, when you get right down to it, Walgreens is a drugstore.  And drugstores sell remedies for physical human conditions.  And if you think the human body is a miraculous thing of beauty, you’ve been reading too many magazines.  The human body is horrible, terrifying and disgusting.   

One of the most traumatic things that has ever happened to me was to have to spend almost two hours in the aisles of a CVS.  I had decided, the day after the mayor declared a flu epidemic in the city of Boston, to go to CVS to get a flu shot.  There were about a billion hacking, sniffling people there doing the same thing.  I had to wait in a long, slow line in one aisle to check in, a long, slow line in a second aisle to pay, and a long, slow line in a third aisle to get the actual shot.  During the whole wait, there was nothing to do but thoroughly, meticulously observe every detail of every product on every shelf. 

Usually when you go to a drugstore, it’s because you have one specific ailment and one discrete corresponding item to pick up.  But to be in the atypical position of having to confront all personal care products at the same time is just absolutely horrifying.  There’s a product for everything: Rashes, funguses, ingrown toenails and hairs, boils;  The inability to crap;  The inability not to crap;  Indigestion, too much burping, too much farting; Dandruff, cracked skin, oily skin; Hair sprouting from inappropriate orifices.  And all of that is before you get anywhere near the genital regions and all of their concomitant warts, yeasts, itching, chafing, leaking, oozing and hemorrhaging. 

A drugstore experience like mine is not easily forgotten.  I’m carrying some baggage.  The new Walgreens may be pristine and immaculate and new, but it’s a drugstore nonetheless.  When I wandered in for the first time the memories all came flooding back.  Which doesn’t do much to stimulate one’s appetite.  Everything has its place.  Humans need products to help mitigate their inherent repulsiveness.  So there are stores for that.  And humans need and like to eat.  So there are restaurants for that.  But those two places should be separate and distinct.  They say “don’t shit where you eat.”  They should also say “don’t buy Vagisil and FungiCure where you eat.”  And that, in a nutshell, is why I will never buy sushi at Walgreens.

The Boston Marathon Bombing - Good and Evil and the World we Live In

When something horrible happens, like the bombing at the Boston Marathon, really, all we can do is to keep on doing whatever it is that we do.  I’ve lived in Boston for 13 years.  And what I like to do is to run and to write.  So I thought I’d share my thoughts about what happened last Monday.

What’s good in the world

Running, to me, is a distillation of all that’s good in the world.  In the past six years, I’ve run 15 marathons and logged about 40 miles almost every week.  Running has become the center point of my life.  It is my hobby, my drug, my religion.  It is the reason I travel, the way I socialize and my reason for getting out of bed in the morning.  When I run, I feel physically and mentally invigorated.  If I run in the morning, everything I encounter during my day is just better.  Running is simple and easy and natural.  All you need is a pair of shoes.  All you have to do is walk out the door and go.  Instructional running books mostly try to teach you to shed your adult inhibitions and run like a five year-old.

And a marathon, to me, is everything good running has to offer, times ten.  It’s a travel destination, a way to explore a new place and to become fast friends with strangers.  It’s a competition, but without any of the chest thumping and machismo of most sports.  The only adversary is gravity, wind and your own physical and psychological limitations.  It takes a lot of hard preparation, but anyone can do it.  If you go out and run, and then run a little more and a little more again, you can do a marathon.

I’ve never run the Boston Marathon.  I’m too slow to qualify, too squeamish about asking for money to get a charity bib and too rule-following to be a bandit.  I’ll do it someday.  But I watch it every single year.  My favorite place to watch is just past the finish line.  I like to watch the expression on the runners’ faces the moment they stop running.  In one instant, they shift from almost unbearable pain and exertion to complete euphoria.  There is virtually nothing in the world that makes me misty.  But I often lose my breath and get teary looking into the eyes of some anonymous Joe slowing to a walk after crossing the finish line, who I don’t know and who I will probably never see again. 

Our friends Bob and his wife, Barb, from Colorado, stayed with us this year for the marathon.  Leslie and I got Bob all set up – walked him through the expo, drove him along some of the course, made him a pasta dinner, dropped him off in the morning at the bus staging ground and sent him off with some nip-guards, Gu, a throw-away sweatshirt and wishes for a great race.  Leslie and Barb studied the course map, plotted out places to watch and cross-referenced them with Bob’s expected pace  to make sure they would have time to get from place to place to see Bob a few times during the race. 

At dinner the night before the race, we were joined by Heather and Gail from New Zealand.  They were 50 and 70 and had run 15 and 33 marathons. Barb and Bob have been friends with Leslie since they were kids.  Heather and Gail were perfect strangers.  They were acquaintances of neighbors, looking for a meal the night before a marathon.  We were happy to have them.  That’s just how it works.

Marathon Monday

I was tracking six runners during the marathon – Bob, Heather and Gail, my friend Shawn from Ithaca, my morning running buddy Tim, and Wendy, a Canadian lawyer I had met at a business breakfast the week before the race.  I left my office at around noon to go down to my usual spot past the finish line.  I had to be back at my office for a call and left the finish line half an hour before the first explosion.  Bob finished the race, picked up his medal and bag and found Leslie, Barb and Leslie’s friend Daryl at the family meeting area.  They were walking towards the T when they heard the loud explosions.

Then everything went berserk.  No need to recap the details; the whole world saw it on TV.  We tracked down all the runners and spectators we knew.  They were all fine.  We all met back at our house.  For the next four days, like everyone, I stayed glued to my computer monitoring news, Facebook, Twitter and e-mail.  It was heart-warming to get messages of concern from what seemed like every person I had ever met. 

You can’t spend too much time worrying about how things could have been different.  If my call at work hadn’t been pushed up an hour, I probably would have hung around longer at the finish line.  If one of the people killed by the bomb had seen a better spot ten feet away, they would probably still be around today.  But that’s how it works.  There are a thousand different paths you can take every second of every day.  But of the infinite possibilities, every life is just one single unfolding of events.  There’s no looking back. 

What’s Evil in the World and What do we Do About it All

Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev did something so incomprehensibly horrible, it’s hard even to process.  If the evil behind the marathon bombings lies in these two individuals, then we’ve accomplished everything we need to – capture or kill them.  The precision with which the police and military machine was able to identify and catch the two bombers was hard to fathom.  It took three days to find photos of them, five hours to identify them and 29 hours to kill and capture them.  I’m not a big military booster, but I was floored by how effectively the police and military were able to complete the task that had to be done. 

But if you look one slight bit below the surface and start thinking about what makes people do the things they do, things start to get a whole lot more complicated.  To say that every person is a manifestation of the influences that surround him, and of whatever happenstance circumstances happen to show up on the scene is not just a hippy-dippy, bleeding heart new age Buddhist mantra, it’s a reality.  We got the guys, but the guys are just symptoms of a disease.  And it’s my opinion, for better or for worse, that the disease is not something for which there will ever be a cure. 

The rote platitudes our leaders are obligated to spew – justice will be served; evil will be conquered; the spirit of our community will never be repressed – don’t resonate with me.  And while I understand the need and desire of some to show solidarity and demonstrate to the world that we will carry on as always, those kinds of sentiments don’t move me. 

Tomorrow’s terrorists will unfortunately not be deterred by seeing today’s terrorists brought to justice.  And they will not feel defeated by knowing that they have not broken our will.  So what do I think? Just keep on keepin’ on, I guess.   And what do we do?  If everyone got more cuddles, would that rid the world of evil.  No, but it would be a small step in the right direction.  The elements of good and evil are out there in the world.  Some of us are lucky enough to be born in a good time and place with good families and positive networks and somehow manage to absorb some critical mass of all that is positive.  And some of us just aren’t.  Some of us will absorb all that is evil.  I don’t think there will ever be an end to the terrible, incomprehensible atrocities that people commit. 

So there’s good and bad.  And we can each decide on any given day which we think has a leg up. Tragedies will strike and individuals will do horrible things.  I will keep running.  Boston will stay strong and proud.  And the universe will continue to unfold in whatever way it will. We’ve all gotta keep doing our thing and try, when we can, to enjoy the ride. 

That’s what I think of Marathon Monday and that’s what I think of the world.  

My Friend Jill – Zen Master of the Upper East Side

(Jill’s apartment on 78^th and 3^rd.  Not the living room. Not some of the apartment. All of it)

My friend Jill has the smallest apartment I have ever seen.  She bought it ten years ago.  It’s in an upscale part of Manhattan – 78^th and 3^rd on the Upper East Side – in a nice building with a doorman.  Not that I haven’t seen plenty of tiny New York apartments.  I have lots of friends and family who live in New York and I understand that amenities that are standard in the rest of the normal universe – like windows in a bedroom or a sink in a bathroom – are not things you take for granted in New York.  I also read the New York Times – a paper whose mission is 50% to provide Pulitzer prize-winning national and international news reporting and 50% to discuss how hard it is to find an apartment in New York.  And I understand New York pricing considerations.  Unless you work in finance, are independently wealthy or have stolen your dead grandmother’s identity and are squatting in her rent-controlled apartment, your New York apartment will not be more than 750 square feet.  I have just enough etiquette training that I didn’t come right out and ask Jill how much she paid for her place (although not enough etiquette to stop me from doing my research for this penetrating exposé by showing up uninvited to girls’ night at Jill’s place, drinking all her white wine and taking off without helping to clean anything up).  But my guess is that if she were willing to move to some middle America exburb, she could trade in her place for a 6,000 square foot mcmansion with a four car garage and a hockey rink in the basement. 

You can see Jill’s apartment in the pictures above.  Those aren’t pictures of Jill’s living room or a part of her apartment.  That’s the whole thing.  The hallway that leads to the bathroom has a galley kitchen with a mini-‘fridge.  And there are two closets.  When the couch is folded out, the room becomes the bedroom.  When there is food on the coffee table, it’s a dining room.  When friends are crashed out all over the floor in sleeping bags, it’s the guest suite. 

But what’s most shocking about Jill’s apartment is not its size, but the complete and utter lack of stuff.  Jill has what she calls a “total lack of crap” policy in her life “with anyone, anything, and everything.”  The entirety of her possessions are as follows: 1 couch with a fold-out bed; 1 glass coffee table; 1 end table; 1 bureau; 1 TV bolted to the wall; 1 nice Oriental rug; 3 pictures; 1 desk; 1 office chair; and 1 laptop computer.  She has clothes, 30 pairs of shoes and some cleaning supplies in the closet.  That’s it. 

In her own way, Jill lives the life of a Buddhist monk.  And not in the sort of backed-in philosophical justification kind of way that some people adopt when they find themselves with no stuff and nowhere nice to live (i.e., Am I a sort of down-on-my-luck slacker?  Au contraire.  I’m a monk!  Buddhism, man, that’s the ticket!).  Jill’s also not your average pot-smoking, Himalaya-climbing Western Zen convert.  She’s a highly educated, world traveling successful professional.  She works for the London School of Economics.  She’s as rational as they come. Her choice of lifestyle is thoroughly thought-out and purposeful.  Jill does not see a need to hang onto a single possession that is not mission critical for her life.  And she’s ruthless about getting rid of any object that doesn’t fit the bill.  I grilled Jill the entire time I was at her place about the specifics.  D: “What about magazines?” J: “I have several subscriptions and I keep the current issue of each.  When a new one arrives, the old one gets tossed.”  D: “Christmas cards?” J: “I read each one, appreciate the nice thought, and put it in the recycling bin.”  D: “How about toilet paper.  Any back-up?” J: “Yes, plenty.  I buy the big bulk packs.  They’re in the closet.”  D: “What about a power charger for a BlackBerry that died five years ago, you know, just in case?” J: “I think that’s your own pathology, Dan.”   

Here is the clincher, proof positive that Jill has taken minimalist living to a level that virtually no other mere mortal could ever hope to achieve: Jill has in her apartment exactly one pen.  Which makes perfect sense if you think about it.  As Jill will tell you, if you live alone, you can only write one thing at a time.  Why would you ever need two pens, much less the 500 or 1,000 that you find in a typical house? 

Whatever the origin of Jill’s philosophy, being free of possessions is very much in keeping with the Buddhist concept of living in the moment.  The past is gone and the future will never arrive.  And most possessions are reminders of the past or tools we think we’ll need later. 

Jill focuses relentlessly on the physical items she needs and purges all others.  Whatever question you can throw her way about how she lives, she can respond with a clear and confident answer.  With one exception.  There’s one thing I nailed her on.  Ice.  Jill’s half size mini fridge doesn’t have a freezer, so she can’t produce ice in-house.  Crafting a nice cocktail means going down the street to a deli to buy a bag of ice.  When I pointed out to Jill that she lives in one of the nicest neighborhoods in maybe the single most “premium” city in the country and doesn’t have ice, and that even people living in the most decrepit trailers in the poorest backwaters of Appalachia can usually make their own ice, Jill said, reluctantly, “yeah, that’s a problem.” 

Anyway, despite the ice issue, Jill’s got a good thing going on and, in her unique way, is very inspiring.  I don’t think I’ll ever be able to achieve quite her level of material discipline, but I’m making an effort.  The week after I visited Jill, when getting ready to check out of a hotel room, I did my usual survey – making sure I had packed everything and tossing the pen from the hotel room in my bag.  I don’t remember ever being explicitly taught this, but I always thought that people had an almost Biblical obligation to steal pens from hotel rooms.  But no longer.  From that moment forward, I channeled my inner-Jill and vowed not to bring any more pens into my home.  I can’t bring myself to toss out the 995 pens I already have (what if I can’t find a pen?  What if they’re all out of ink?), but it’s a start.   

Zen masters sometimes show up in mysterious places.  People travel the world to seek their advice.  But if you’re looking for inspiration, before shipping off to India or Tibet, swing by Jill’s place on 3^rd Ave. in Manhattan and take a look. 

Gérard Depardieu is a Douche, and You are a Slave Owner

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Since the presidential election, I’ve been in a blissful state of media blackout.  Immediately after it was confirmed that Barry was going to serve another four years, the focus of all news turned to the fiscal cliff.  One of the main ingredients in the fiscal cliff stew was the question of who should pay how much in taxes.  Concerned citizens seemed generally to concur that the rich should pay more.  And so the discussion turned to what constitutes being rich.  The threshold annual family income number that initially got tossed around was $250,000.  Then we all had to decide whether that was right.  And then I started hearing a sentiment over and over again that made me start to lose my shit, and, ultimately, just tune out all media.  The sentiment was some incarnation of, “well yes, I make $250k but I’m not rich.” 

In the end, that point of view prevailed.  The bottom line of what our elected officials decided is that rich means having annual income of $400,000 for an individual or $450,000 for married taxpayers filing together.  The tax those folks will have to pay on amounts over the threshold has increased from 35% to 39.6%.  A hardly-scraping-by middle class individual who makes $350,000 a year won’t have to pay any more in federal taxes.   

Almost nobody thinks they’re rich.  For a big-city-living couple with a few kids and a $250k annual income, once checks are written for private school, the mortgage, two car leases and the other standard bla bla bla things you need to live in the modern world, there’s hardly enough left over for a winter trip to Florida. At the end of the day, $250k makes you feel like you’re just scraping by.  What word would people living that use to describe their lifestyle?  The one I hear over and over is “comfortable.”

Rich seems to mean having a vacation home and a yacht and flying on a private jet.  How did that come to be?  How is it that people who make 100 times more than the vast majority of everyone living on earth don’t feel like they’re rich?  I blame TV.  I know, I tend to blame everything on TV.  To be more specific, I blame TV ads, which are a by-product of the whole consumption-based economy that can only survive if the masses are brainwashed into thinking that buying more and more and more stuff will make them happier, more interesting, better looking and (for part of the population) better equipped to please their wives in bed.  During any given holiday season NFL game, once you strip away the light beer ads, it seems like about 80% of all remaining ads are for BMWs, Mercedeses, Audis and Lexuses.  I’m positive that the average football watcher does not drive one of those brands of car, but the economics of luxury car ads must be that if one in 10,000 people is moved to buy one, it’s worth the spend.  If a by-product is that 9,999 other people start subtly, imperceptibly to believe that every average Joe watching football drives a BMW, and that having to slum it in a Nissan means that they’re just getting by, well that’s an issue for someone else to meditate on. 

So let’s do a little deconstructing of the idea of living a “comfortable” life.  To be comfortable, you have to be able to afford to heat your house.  Which means you have a house.  And a heater.  If a kid is sick or a friend comes to town to visit, you can take an afternoon off from work.  If you’ve had a real grueling stretch at work and you really need to just get away for a few days, you can motor up to some cozy but unpretentious B&B and read a book for a weekend.  That all seems real average, middle of the road.  But I propose this: that it’s not.  And that perhaps we all need to recalibrate and appreciate that what “comfortable” very often means is “compared to almost everyone who has lived anywhere on Earth at any time in history, filthy, stinking, parasitic capitalist-ly in your face RICH.”     

Here’s another way I would frame it.  A comfortable life is a life lived in the front of house.  Back of house is the grungy part of a restaurant where all the hard work gets done to make the patrons in the front of house – the dining room – feel calm and well cared for.  And if things are working the way they’re supposed to, back of house is completely invisible.  This analogy applies to almost everything that makes a comfortable life possible.  In particular, everything that is manufactured.  The astonishingly successful Wal-Martification of the world has us all convinced that we have a god given right to everyday low priced $29.99 DVD players.  Every once in a while there is some spectacularly horrific event – a sweatshop fire, a photo of suicide prevention nets surrounding a factory dormitory, whatever – that causes the curtain to be pulled back and us to have to confront the fact that the special sauce that goes into the cheap merchandise that is the backbone of our comfortable existence is, essentially, slavery.

It’s not legal anymore to own a person and we’re very proud as a nation to have overcome our grizzly past where you once could.  We believe in freedom.  But if freedom means that, no, nobody holds legal title to your body, but the only choice you’re free to make is between earning $1,000 a year building iPhone parts and starving, it starts to seem like we may not have made so much progress after all.  If you live in the front of house, even if you never see the back of house domestic and international network of invisible slaves that makes it possible for you to be “comfortable” you’re not absolved from being a slave owner.

OK, that’s all pretty damning.  But, more importantly, what does Gérard Depardieu have to do with all this?  Well even in my attempt at a media black-out, some news creeped in.  When I get to work every morning, I have to 1) pass by a huge TV in the lobby that always seems to be on the 24 hour Jim Cramer Mad Money Financial Screaming Heads McNews Network and then 2) get into an elevator with a small screen that broadcasts the most aptly named network in history – Captivate – which streams idiot tidbits and survey results about office life and celebrity news. 

The celebrity news I was enlightened with last week was that Gérard Depardieu had become a Russian citizen so that he wouldn’t have to pay the newly-raised French income tax on annual income of over one million Euros.  He was so disgusted with President Hollande’s plan to pillage the rich in France that he upped and moved.  So it turns out that being righteous about being rich is not unique to US capitalists.  Something about a famous movie star pulling a stunt like this made me even more nauseated than when I hear the same crap from some twenty-something banker type.  Actors who happen to be one of the one in ten million who make it and manage to become rich have done so based on support from the unwashed masses.  Their fortunes come from all the poor peasants who have managed to squirrel away a few Shekels to buy two hours of silver screen escapism from their squalid workaday lives.  For a successful actor like that to effectively say to the huddled masses that he deserves to foot even less of the bill for the infrastructure of a civil first world society is beyond despicable.  That, in my book, buys Mr. Depardieu the title of King Douchebag or, as they say in France, Maître du Sac à Douche. 

So now what?  I’ve called you a slave owner and pointed out that there’s no way to live a modern life without standing mercilessly on the backs of the children of the world who work 16 hours a day do cobble together the Roomba you depend on.  And now I’m just going to leave you hanging?  No way.  I’ve got action items.  Follow these easy steps and you’re off the hook.  We’re good.

1) Boycott Gérard Depardieu.  If you feel the need to see a heart-warming rom com or a moving re-telling of an epic traditional French legend, go see something by another French actor like, well, I can’t think of any.  Maybe support Hugh Grant. 

2) If you ever make a statement to the effect of “something something something, but I’m not rich,” recall that the real translation of said statement is, “compared to almost all other human beings on earth, I am stinking, filthy, parasitic capitalist-ly in your face RICH.” 

3) Do not ever ever use the word “comfortable” / “uncomfortable” to describe a psychological or emotional state.  “Comfortable” means lying in a hammock sipping lemonade on a breezy summer afternoon.  Comfortable is not supposed to be the natural state of things.  Remember that your not-so-distant ancestors were happy playing with dirt and that the rest of the beasts on earth still have to worry about having their flesh ripped off by a lion while they’re still alive.  As we have discussed, “comfortable” also has the same meaning as “rich.”  See item #2 above. 

4) If you overhear someone else making statements like those described in aforementioned items 2 and 3 above, pay this blog forward and relay the message to the speaker.  They will almost surely appreciate being enlightened.  If not, have them call me. 

5) Pay your taxes, appreciate what you have, enjoy your life, and try not to shit all over the poor.  

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There are few things more disgusting than a parasitic

Front of House capitalist playing Back of House worker. 

“Ooh.  Look at me.  I can pass out chips just like a

$17,000 a year-making flight attendant!”