Defeat by praise

The next time you are getting beaten at a game of skill such as golf or pool or bowling, observe your opponent lining up a shot as if in admiration; then after he or she is done, remark on a minute but odd detail you observed (or merely claim to have observed). For instance, “I noticed that every time you are about to take a swing, your nostrils flare twice.” That will be the end of your opponent’s good game.

This technique was used against me many years ago by my mother during a game of shuffleboard. I couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven. It was me and my dad versus her and my sister, and we were creaming them — mainly because of my totally unexpected deadly accuracy. Then came the point where she told me, “I noticed that when you’re lining up a shot, your eyes click back and forth along the shuffleboard court in discrete little steps, like a robot.” And that was it for my deadly accuracy. I was completely self-conscious for the rest of that and every subsequent shuffleboard game. Not necessarily because I cared how my eyes looked when I was playing, but because I began actively trying to replicate the proper eye motion that had yielded such good results. Of course it couldn’t be replicated consciously, and trying to do so only made me sure I was doing it wrong, which wrecked my confidence and hence my ability (since confidence is 90% of ability). And of course trying not to do it consciously was hopeless. (“Don’t think of a pink elephant!”)

The effect of my mom’s comment was so immediate and so apparent that she quickly apologized and has re-apologized several times over the decades. I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and believe that it really was unintended. But if she really had meant to negate our team advantage and even the odds, she could not have been more surgically precise about it.

Aboriginal self-abnegation

In the months preceding my Bar Mitzvah I became determined that, when the day arrived, my skin should be absolutely clear and blemish-free, despite then being in the throes of pubescent acne. To achieve this goal I swore off chocolate and deep-fried food cold-turkey. For something like two or three months I upheld this prohibition (except for one time when I thoughtlessly accepted a few proffered potato chips, then agonized over them for the next several days). The result: it worked! On the day of my Bar Mitzvah my skin positively glowed.

That was the first of a handful of occasions on which I have rigorously denied something to myself pending the attainment of some goal. Another memorable instance was “No sushi until my startup makes some money.” (That one was a collective vow by all the founders of Zanshin. We broke the vow after the first couple of years for the occasion of our first important business meeting with a prospective partner. Man, that sushi tasted good.) The success of these efforts has hinged on my making a public declaration of them.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. My weight-loss program has stalled despite having added some exercise into the mix. I am oscillating around the 173-pound mark, but my daily goal is now almost down to 168. To get back on track, I am now publicly declaring that I will eat no more pasta until I break 170. (Why pasta? Well, I eat a lot of it. And subjectively speaking, the worst backsliding on my weight graph always seems to occur the morning after a pasta meal.)

Let’s give that a few days and see if it produces any results. If it doesn’t, I’ll add more foods to the prohibited list.

Tom Swifties

For several years, my friend Steve and I have been making one another groan with our “Tom Swifties,” puns with a distinctive form that I won’t bother to explain; you’ll get the drift pretty quickly from the numerous examples below.

Most of these are from our most fertile period during the mid- to late-nineties. I no longer remember which ones I wrote and which ones he wrote. Occasionally one or the other of us will still come up with a new one and mail it to the other under the subject heading, “Do not read.”

  • “A thousand dollars!” Tom said grandly.
  • “I’ll make coffee,” Tom said perkily.
  • “I’m going to the bathroom,” Tom said peevishly.
  • “Where’s my dog?” Tom said uncannily.
  • “I just came back from Kansas,” Tom explained.
  • “I’m a plumber,” Tom piped in.
  • “Give me another hit off that roach,” Tom said dubiously.
  • “You turkeys,” Tom groused.
  • “This thesis begins well,” Tom said abstractly.
  • “I almost got the bronze,” Tom held forth.
  • “I’m a metal worker specializing in phrenology,” Tom forged ahead.
  • “With with with with,” Tom said forthwith.
  • “Turn right,” Tom said adroitly.
  • “Don’t erase it this time,” Tom remarked.
  • “I lost them in the war,” Tom said defeatedly.
  • “And over here is the tomb of Elmer Fudd,” Tom quipped.
  • “It was the year that I almost won the election,” Tom recounted.
  • “Here!” Tom said presently.
  • “I’m celibate,” Tom said inscrutably.
  • “That dragon almost got me,” Tom said under his breath.
  • “‘Ere, I done the bleedin’ lawn,” Tom emoted.
  • “I belong,” Tom said at length.
  • “I’m done cooking,” Tom fired off.
  • “I’ll not stand for it!” Tom lied.
  • “This is my hotel,” Tom intended to say.
  • “I’m the keystone of this operation,” Tom said archly.
  • “Have more wine,” Tom replied.
  • “I’m getting another lawyer,” Tom retorted.
  • “All right, I was a prostitute,” Tom exhorted.
  • “How gauche,” Tom said, and left.
  • “You have to use caulk. Caulk!” Tom crowed.
  • “I can’t stop this horse,” Tom said woefully.
  • “I am too,” Tom said evenly.
  • “I sprained my ankle during the race,” Tom finished lamely.
  • “But let me tell you about myself,” Tom resumed.
  • “I love shaving insects,” Tom blathered.
  • “You look good in mink,” Tom inferred.
  • “This hive’s empty,” Tom believed.
  • “A-yup, that’s a donkey alright,” Tom assured.
  • “Draw,” Tom drawled.
  • “I better walk in front,” Tom decided.
  • “I think it’s in the closet,” Tom came out with gaily.
  • “He stopped breathing,” Tom said, exasperated.
  • “It’s either a big puddle or a small lake,” Tom said ponderously.
  • “You thieving knave,” Tom said tartly.
  • “Goodness!” Tom said graciously.
  • “The power went out!” said Tom, delighted.
  • “22/7 is close enough,” Tom rationalized.
  • “Boy, it sure is hot these days,” Tom summarized.
  • “Crooked, off-center, and inclined,” Tom listed.
  • “Thar she blows!” Tom wailed.
  • “You call it,” Tom said flippantly.
  • “I didn’t want to be in their rotten club anyway,” Tom said, dismembered.
  • “Does your society really consist of soldiers, workers, and a queen?” Tom said askance.
  • “It’s exactly twelve ounces of soda,” Tom fantasized.
  • “Boy, that tree’s bent in a complete circle,” Tom opined.
  • “I enjoyed that French bread,” Tom said painfully.
  • “Where’s the cat box?” Tom said literally.
  • “Again,” Tom said again.
  • “It’s somewhere in South America,” Tom perused.
  • “Nice hair,” Tom brayed.
  • “This is mine,” Tom disclaimed.
  • “No, not San Francisco, I meant that other city down south,” Tom lamented.
  • “A booby-trap!” Tom tittered.
  • “Look at all those politicians,” Tom said by convention.
  • “Dammit,” Tom stonewalled.
  • “You fellas are all expert shots,” Tom said with acumen.
  • “I am a nun,” Tom said out of habit.
  • “Nice slacks,” Tom panted.
  • “I work in bog repair,” Tom repeated.
  • “Get ready to go really fast!” Tom presumed.
  • “I have to unfreeze this steak,” Tom thought.
  • “Him,” Tom pronounced.
  • “I can see up your skirt,” Tom misunderstood.
  • “Get lost,” Tom pointed out.
  • “There’s my street,” Tom said ruefully.
  • “I’m moved,” Tom translated.
  • “I think I’m developing cataracts,” Tom said with denial.
  • “Who let the fire go out!” Tom bellowed.

And then there’s this very dated one:

  • “I approve of our new vice president,” Tom said allegorically.

(Maybe soon we can rewrite it to say “I approve of our new president.”)

To Andrea

A love poem for my wife, in Shakespearean sonnet form.

An anniversary comes once a year
But we prefer to celebrate our love
More often than those other days appear
It’s menseversaries that I speak of

One menseversary each year bestrides
A day already all about sweethearts
It’s Valentine’s and monthly fête besides
And so we need a name that has both parts

So: “Valentersary”? No, that’s no good
For where’s the “mense” in that made-up word?
And “mensevalentine,” it’s understood
Omits the “versary,” which must be heard

But “mensevalentersariney” has
Precision and colloquial pizzazz

OK, so it’s long on cleverness and short on romance. But she knew what she was getting into when she married me.

Hershey bar(f)

[Continuing an unintended run of anecdotes from the 90’s.]

In the spring of 1992, Alex the dog (who was then just four years old) and I were newly transplanted to California, where I’d moved for my first real job in the private-sector, writing software at an e-mail startup called Z-Code. Andrea had not yet followed us from Pittsburgh. To help us get settled, Z-Code’s founder, Dan, let me and Alex live with him for a couple of months.

One afternoon I came home to find the shredded remains of a Hershey’s “Big Block” chocolate bar wrapper on the floor. It had been on a table and Alex had obviously reached up and devoured it.

I knew that chocolate is poison to dogs. I grabbed the Yellow Pages and looked up the local veterinary emergency number. They told me that I needed to induce vomiting. To do so, I needed a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a plastic syringe to squirt the stuff into Alex’s mouth a bit at a time.

A big drug store was three long blocks away. I ran. The day was quite hot, and by the time I got back to Dan’s house, panting, gasping, and sweating, I was ready to vomit.

There was Alex, looking perfectly happy, completely unsuspecting of what was about to happen to her. I took her onto the back deck with the peroxide and the syringe, sat her down, and squirted some into her mouth. She obviously hated it. When I came near her for another squirt she tried to slink away and I had to grab her in a headlock. Then again. And again. She seemed no nearer vomiting (or dying from chocolate, for that matter), but she was increasingly unhappy about the situation. For my part, I was completely miserable: torturing my sweet pup under the blazing sun, already wiped out from my dash to and from the store, sweat pouring off me, cursing because Alex won’t stay put. I took a break from feeding peroxide to Alex and we retreated to opposite corners like prize fighters. I waited for any signs of imminent vomiting but there were none, so I picked up the syringe again and resumed.

Twenty long, hot minutes later Alex’s face finally began screwing up in the familiar grimace that signals an upcoming barf — but she was still not quite there yet. I didn’t have the heart to keep pouring that stuff down her throat — I hadn’t for a long time by this point — but I forced myself to continue on the purely intellectual knowledge that responsible dog ownership required me to. (Any emotional sense of alarm I initially felt was long gone.)

Finally Alex backed away from me; her sides heaved a few times; she pointed her mouth at the ground; and out it came. Not much, and I saw no sign of chocolate in it, but I had no idea whether I should. I didn’t know if more vomiting was to follow, so we had to wait outside, the late-morning heat making everything worse. One thing was certain, I decided: whether or not Alex threw up more, I was done with the peroxide. I went inside for a big glass of water, brought it out, and drizzled it over Alex. She seemed grateful.

After a while she recovered. We both went back inside and cooled off. I hung out with her and made sure she knew I still loved her. That afternoon, by way of an apology, I took her for her first-ever visit to a dog park, the then-brand-new, trailblazing Remington Dog Park in Sausalito.

What’s in a number?

In 1996, three friends and I left our jobs at Z-Code Software (which by then had been acquired by NCD, which is a whole story in itself) to found our own e-mail software company, Zanshin. To get the company going, we each put in ten thousand dollars of our own money.

Zanshin

Zanshin is a Japanese word relating to follow-through (particularly in the martial arts), but it has other nice connotations too. We chose it after reading this passage in Neal Stephenson‘s Snow Crash:

The businessman turns out to have a lot of zanshin. Translating this concept into English is like translating “fuckface” into Nipponese, but it might translate into “emotional intensity” in football lingo. […] “Emotional intensity” doesn’t convey the half of it, of course. It is the kind of coarse and disappointing translation that makes the dismembered bodies of samurai warriors spin in their graves. The word “zanshin” is larded down with a lot of other folderol that you have to be Nipponese to understand.

Zanshin (the company) still exists, though I’m no longer involved day-to-day, it’s in a completely different business from the one we started, and it now operates under the name iPost.

Sitting down with our lawyer to draw up the paperwork for the new corporation, he asked us what the ownership structure of the company was. We replied that we were four equal partners. He next asked how many shares of company stock we wanted to issue.

We looked at each other and shrugged. We were all novices at this. “Uh, I dunno,” we muttered in various forms. I ventured:

“Four?”

The lawyer looked at me as if I’d just suggested we eat the table for lunch. “No,” he said with a smile, as if getting my joke.

But I was sincere. “Why not?” I asked.

“Because each share would then cost ten thousand dollars.”

“So?”

“So, what if you want to accept investment in something other than multiples of ten thousand dollars? To make the shares worth twenty dollars each, we’d have to do a 500-for-1 stock split!”

“So?” The mathematician in me was kicking in and I wasn’t letting it drop. “If we want to accept outside investment there’ll be stock-related paperwork anyway, so why not also do a 500-for-1 split at that time?”

“Well, it’s just not what new companies do,” he said. I protested a couple more times — one share apiece was both necessary and sufficient, any other number would be arbitrary — and he countered. He seemed as sure that I was nuts as I was about him — though only I could articulate my side of the debate, his obviously consisted of nothing but inertia from decades of unquestioned acquiescence in tradition. My partners were beginning to roll their eyes, the lawyer was growing uncomfortable (and costing us money!), and I was aware I didn’t know everything about starting companies, so finally I let it drop. On the lawyer’s advice we issued 800,000 shares in the new company, each worth a nickel, and we each got 200,000 of them.

Trivial though the matter was, to this day it bothers me that I caved. You might say that makes me stubborn. I call it a healthy mistrust of authority.

Take the time, do it right

I used the following story at work the other day to illustrate why some of us should avoid some ill-advised shortcuts and choose instead to stand up to critics of how long our project is taking:

In 1995, when my primary flight training was complete, it was time for my checkride to see whether I’d become a licensed pilot or not. For the checkride I had to fly from my home airport, Petaluma, to the FAA examiner’s airport, Santa Rosa (er, the Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport — yes, that Charles Schulz). That flight was uneventful. When I arrived I shut down and secured the plane as usual, then went in to talk to the examiner for a while before we began the “practical” (flying) portion of the examination.

Unlike Petaluma, Santa Rosa has a control tower, which means you must radio for permission to taxi. So after preflighting the plane, climbing aboard, strapping in, putting on my headset, starting the engine, and performing the pre-taxi checklist, I radioed the tower. “Santa Rosa ground, Cessna 24498 on the main ramp, taxi to the active with Foxtrot.” The tower did not respond, which is not too unusual as control towers sometimes get busy and taxi clearances get low priority. So after a few seconds I radioed again. “Santa Rosa ground, Cessna 24498 on the main ramp, taxi to the active with Foxtrot.” Still nothing. I double-checked the frequency to which the radio was tuned, waited a few seconds and tried again. Then again. Finally after several long minutes, with the instructor waiting patiently beside me (and was that a bemused smile on his face the whole time?), I noticed that I’d forgotten to plug the headsets into the radio stack! The instructor and I were able to talk to each other but not to the tower.

Flustered, I explained to the instructor that this was my first time using a two-person intercom with the radio stack. (In small planes, very often the intercom is a separate little box that the pilot owns. Two headsets plug into it, then the box — which usually ends up wedged between the front seats or knocking around loose on the floor of the cabin — plugs into the radio. Before the checkride, I flew solo with no need for an intercom — my headset plugged right into the radio — and before flying solo, my instructor would always set up his intercom for us to use.) The examiner put me at ease, saying, “Anyone could have forgotten to plug in the intercom. It’s not on the checklist. A poor student would have given up and started taxiing without clearance. You did what you were supposed to do, even if it took a little longer.”

About an hour later I was a licensed pilot.

Moral of the story: if it takes a little longer to do things right because you haven’t thought of everything, it’s still better than the alternative.

The one that got away

I remember the summer of 1975. I was not quite nine. Everyone was talking about Jaws. My mom forbade me to see it, asserting it would ruin forever my enjoyment of swimming at the beach (as it had hers). She was probably right, but with the pop-culture world abuzz about the film, it was impossible not to burn with desire to see it, especially when my friend Matthew, who had seen it, described in gory detail the scene where they find a disembodied human head floating in a shipwreck!

As we now know, Star Wars came along two summers later and together these two films transformed the economics of Hollywood, ushering in the era of the summer blockbuster. But in 1975 the ubiquity of Jaws was an unprecedented phenomenon. Certainly there had been big “event” movies before, but not since the Great Depression, when droves of Americans turned to glitzy musicals for much-needed escapism, had going to the movies been so central to American life.

All this came back to me as I read a news blurb recently about how, after Jaws, Alfred Hitchcock refused to meet with Steven Spielberg because Spielberg made Hitchcock “feel like such a whore.” That, and the dismay this caused Spielberg (who idolized Hitchcock), was all I saw of the blurb.

At once I understood a little better why Spielberg cast François Truffaut in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Truffaut was not only an iconic filmmaker from the French new wave, he was also Hitchcock’s definitive biographer.

But I wondered about why Spielberg made Hitchcock feel like a whore. Did Hitchcock foresee, years before everyone else, the huge changes that Jaws was wreaking on the movie business? Did he fret about the coming rise of commerce over art? Did Spielberg’s success with Jaws somehow make Hitchcock question the motivation behind his own accomplishments? It seemed unlikely given all the changes Hitchcock had seen in the film industry over the course of his long career. Hollywood is not a place for those with hangups about artistic integrity.

All of which was interesting enough to think about that it prompted me to begin writing this blog post, which in turn prompted me to look up the full article, which explains the less-culturally-relevant reality: that Hitchcock was a whore. He took a million dollars to be the voice of the Jaws ride on the Universal Studios tour and felt dirty about it ever after. “I can’t sit down and talk to the boy who did the fish movie,” Hitchcock once explained to actor Bruce Dern. “I couldn’t even touch his hand.”