Not an Asshole, Just a Bastard...

A situation has recently presented itself where a new author applied first to Smoke Alarm Media, and then to me personally, to sign them as an author. To cut to the punch line, I didn’t sign them. And this pissed them off, royally.

Understand, now that I find myself entering the dreaded midlife years, I am being treated as Old School, whatever the hell that means. Basically, I run a benevolent dictatorship here, and when some fucks up, I let them know, in no uncertain terms, and how to correct it.  Basically, it makes me a bastard, but not an asshole. And in that belief of valuable and immediate feedback, I do something that I wish others did for me; I tell them the truth. 

So this author appealed to me, stating credentials like a Master of Fine Arts, and awards for Bright New Wunderkind (I was a wunderkind, too, once), et al, etc.  These are also fine accomplishments, to be sure. Perhaps yawning did not help his impression of me (no nap that day, so I am excused). He asked me to read portions of his manuscript. I declined. Which made him even more irate, which seems to be a recurring theme these days.

In our world, we are in business to sell books. Nothing. Else. Matters. I asked him his plans for it. Not once in the series of conversations that I had with this gentleman, did he mention how he was going to market and sell his books. He didn’t have a compelling story; he had no identified markets; no plan to take it to the masses. He had a well-written story. That’s it.

I asked his permission to be frank. He gave it, and no doubt regretted it. I told him I didn’t give a damn how smart he was. I didn’t care how well written the book was. All I cared about was his ability to sell it.  I could see the obvious pain my words were causing. So I observed that if he could not handle 5 minutes of honesty, he did not have enough “hide” to be successful when the going got tough. And we did not need that liability in our company.  And in doing so, I saved him months of disappointments, and gave him a MBA for free, or at least an introductory course.

He called me an asshole. I smiled, and told him again, the truth…”Not an Asshole, just a Bastard.”

When it rains, grab an Umbrella!

I can promise that I'm not channeling my inner Fat Joe, but there is sage advice to be followed here...when you work your ass off in a worthy endeavour, eventually success is going to get tired of you birddogging her (as I consider a female a proper similitude of success). Be ready for it. Take an umbrella.

And within 72 hours, whilst I'm dodging burning snags, pissed-off squirrels, and generally praying for rain, I forgot to specify where I wanted it. Out of the blue this week, we have added three new authors, who understand that it's called the NY Times Best-Seller List, and not the Best-Written List (witness 50 Shades if you need clarification).  Look up my brothers, it's raining.

So now we scramble. Create an ad-hoc marketing program.  Blitz the calls to designers. Call in last-minute favors.  Metadata? Who has time for metadata? I'm shipping in 45 days! We are going to pull this out of our collective asses and make it happen.  Granddaddy used to say "Make hay while the sun's shining". I say "It's raining, grab a bloody umbrella."

Keep Digging that Ditch...

It has been a great week, book-wise.  We published three this week...Signature Tastes of Phoenix, Signature Tastes of Denver, and Playing With Fires (my personal ode to Firehouse cooking). So you can imagine that I was pretty proud, and strutting around the office like a banty rooster.

Then I pulled up our publishing dates. Hello Reality Check.

We had published one book in eight months.

One Damn Book.

Granted, it was Signature Tastes of New Orleans, and grand, but really?? What have I been doing with my time?

It occurred to me like a bucket of bricks that there was a reason that we would be eating beans and ramen around the office for the next 3 months.  Because we haven't done shit production-wise. Ultimately, this falls on me. And it is a suck-egg feeling.

The day-in, day-out grind is not sexy, and is not flashy, but dammit, it does pay the bills. Says he who is drinking a protein shake instead of a meal because there aren't enough ducets in the bank account for grocery trip.

Don't stop digging.  Just put your head down and gut it out. And then we can enjoy a breakfast out.

Time to get back to work.

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying...

Another stellar week of breaking the rules of corporate life.  It gives one such a warm and fuzzy feeling.  But what are the rules?  Let's just say I've figured out a couple of them...

-NEVER WALK DOWN THE HALL WITHOUT A DOCUMENT IN YOUR HANDS

People with documents in their hands look like hardworking employees heading for important meetings. People with nothing in their hands look like they're heading for the cafeteria. People with a newspaper in their hand look like they're heading for the toilet. Above all, make sure you carry loads of stuff home with you at night, thus generating the false impression that you work longer hours than you do.

-USE COMPUTERS TO LOOK BUSY

Any time you use a computer, it looks like 'work' to the casual observer. You can send and receive personal e-mail, calculate your finances and generally have a blast without doing anything remotely related to work. These aren't exactly the societal benefits that the proponents of the computer revolution would like to talk about but they're not bad either. When you get caught by your boss [and you *will* get caught] your best defence is to claim you're teaching yourself to use new software, thus saving valuable training dollars.

-MESSY DESK

Top management can get away with a clean desk. For the rest of us, it looks like you're not working hard enough. Build huge piles of documents around your workspace. To the observer, last year's work looks the same as today's work - it's volume that counts. Pile them high and wide. If you know somebody is coming to your cubicle, bury the document you'll need halfway down in an existing stack and rummage for it when he/she arrives.

-VOICE MAIL

Never answer your phone if you have voice mail. People don't call you just because they want to give you something for nothing - they call because they want YOU to do work for THEM. That's no way to live. Screen all your calls through voice mail. If somebody leaves a voice mail message for you and it sounds like impending work, respond during lunch hour when you know they're not there - it looks like you're hardworking and conscientious even though you're being a devious weasel. If you diligently employ the method of screening incoming calls and then returning calls when nobody is there, this will greatly increase the odds that the caller will give up or look for a solution that doesn't involve you. The sweetest voice mail message you can ever hear is: "Ignore my last message. I took care of it". If your voice mailbox has a limit on the number of messages it can hold, make sure you reach that limit frequently. One way to do that is to never erase any incoming messages. If that takes too long, send yourself a few messages. Your callers will hear a recorded message that says "Sorry, this mailbox is full" - a sure sign that you are a hardworking employee in high demand.

-LOOKING IMPATIENT AND ANNOYED

According to George Costanza, one should also always try to look impatient and annoyed to give your bosses the impression that you are always busy.

-APPEAR TO WORK LATE

Always leave the office late, especially when the boss is still around. You could read magazines and storybooks that you always wanted to read but have no time until late before leaving. Make sure you walk past the boss' room on your way out. Send important emails at unearthly hours (e.g. 9:35pm, 7:05am etc ) and during public holidays.

-CREATIVE SIGHING FOR EFFECT

Sigh loudly when there are many people around, giving the impression that you are very hard pressed.

-STACKING STRATEGY

It is not enough to pile lots of documents on the table. Put lots of books on the floor etc... can always borrow from library if necessary. Thick computer manuals are the best.

-BUILD VOCABULARY

Read up on some computer magazines and pick out all the jargon and new products. Use it freely when in conversation with bosses. Remember: They don't have to understand what you say, but you sure sound impressive.

I just gave birth, and hell yes, it was messy...

Our latest ode to culinary gluttony is complete, the Signature Tastes of New Orleans. And she is a doozy. A year in the making, and due in large part to the persistence of the incomparable Paula Garriott.  And while we are comfortable with our Signature Tastes family, every new entry creates a frission of delight, a surge of panic, and a relieved "Thank God we did it" response.  For the parents out there, sound familiar?

So with that being said, I hold forth the most truthful scientific explanation of the birth of a book.  If you doubt it, try it yourself.

Breaking Bread, Not Just For Humans

People have been sharing food with strangers since ancient days, offering up the household's finest fare to mysterious travelers. Think Abraham and the three men of Mamre in the Bible and the folks who take in strangers after natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy. That deep tradition of generous hospitality has long been thought uniquely human.

If so, then bonobos, those gregarious African apes, may be more like us than we thought. So says Nancy Shute, of NPR.

"The pairs that are unfamiliar with each other are the ones that shared most often," says JingZhi Tan, a graduate student at Duke University who tested bonobos' penchant for sharing food and discovered that they not only share with strangers, they even offer their fruit and nuts to an unfamiliar bonobo faster than they will feed one they know well.

Bonobos, like humans, are acutely social, and often eat together. With both species, it works. Children and other vulnerable relatives get fed, social ties are strengthened and alliances formed.

But humans also developed a rich tradition of feeding strangers, one that's embedded in religion and literature – the xenia of ancient Greece, promoted by Zeus, the god of travelers. Back then there were practical reasons for selfless hospitality. It allowed people to travel far from home in the days long before Holiday Inns and drive-throughs. Stingy hosts were reviled, but so were guests who failed to be properly grateful. When Paris made off with his host's wife, Helen, in the Iliad, that faux pas kicked off the Trojan War.

But could hospitality be important to apes? Tan and his colleagues at Duke had done experiments with bonobos two years ago that showed that bonobos would share food with unrelated bonobos, rather than hoard it. Now they wanted to find out just how far that spirit of sharing went. So they created a series of experiments with bonobos living in a sanctuary in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo.

The series of experiments gave bonobos the ability to decide whether they would share their apples, bananas, papayas, and peanuts by giving them control over doors in a room. (See how the researchers did it in this video.)

In the first experiment, the scientists created a setup where one bonobo was put in a room with food. That bonobo could choose to open two doors leading to two other rooms – one housing a friend, the other, a stranger.

All of the bonobos opened a door to let in another, rather than dine alone. And nine of the 14 animals chose dining with the stranger over the familiar face – the ape equivalent of a restaurant's communal table.

What's more, when the familiar bonobo was invited to join the feast, it was almost always by the stranger, who would have considered that bonobo a new face. None of the animals fought over the food, and there was quite a bit of the friendly genital rubbing that's made bonobos renowned in animal behavior-land.

Then the scientists tweaked the layout. In another experiment, the bonobos were isolated in separate cages, with food in a compartment in between. Offered the option of sharing the food without physical contact, not one of the seven bonobos tested pulled a rope that would have let another reach through to the food. The results were published online in the journal PLoS One.

So it looks like if you're a bonobo, sharing food is only worth it if it's a social event. Bonus points if you're meeting someone new. It's fascinating behavior, but the researchers say it's not clear that this is altruism. "If you're being nice to a stranger, it's not necessarily unselfish," Tan told The Salt. It's easy to see the benefits to humans in sharing a meal with a stranger, even in modern times. Good conversation, future business partners, a broader social network – maybe even romance. Perhaps bonobos see those potential payoffs in a meal shared, too.

Screw Being Reasonable...

There’s always at least one in every group. The “let’s be reasonable” guy.
Anytime a plan get’s too audacious or expectations too grandiose, that guys chimes in with his obligatory reminder that you need to slow down, think a little more clearly, and “be reasonable.”
And it usually works.
Instead of dreaming about breaking new boundaries and setting new records, you decide to play it safe. To not risk too much.  To do what an average, ordinary person would do — be reasonable.
And nothing you do is ever more than mediocre. Nothing remarkable. Nothing world-changing.
Just forgettable activity. Mindless daily grind.
And that needs to change.
If you want to be amazing you have to push back against the common sense of “being reasonable”.
It’s not reasonable to keep trying when you fail. But that’s the secret to breakthrough.
It’s not reasonable to get back when you’re knocked down by a bigger opponent.  But that’s how you win.
It’s not reasonable to give more than you get. But that’s how you build relationships that matter.
It’s not reasonable to believe in yourself when no one else does. But that’s how you change the world.
By not being reasonable. By refusing to play it safe.
By denying yourself the safety of looking like you have it all together when you’re really scared inside.  That’s the stuff of champions. That’s real guts.
And you can be that guy.
You can be the rebel. The fighter. The under-dog.
Anyone can give in to fear and doubts and peer pressure.  That doesn’t make you great. It makes you get along with other people. Other people who are losers like you could be.
Except you’re different. Today is different. Instead of choosing the easy path, you can make the choice to stop being reasonable.
To dream bigger. To fight longer. To lead when no one else is following.
Leave being reasonable to the people who call you “lucky” later.