Early on in the pandemic, we started having a meeting at 9 am every day. We’re a company of two. The meeting is, shall we say, casual. There’s no set agenda. Some days it’s three minutes, other days it spans a half hour. I’ll say this much: no time is wasted. Before we started Three Point Four, whenever I was freelancing at an ad agency every project had a morning stand-up. The problem was, everyone was sitting down. The stand- up rarely, if ever, started promptly. It always dragged on for an interminable amount of time. Everyone was bored to tears.
It was very much not a stand-up, but if we’re being honest—and what is your favorite small biz newsletter if not honest?—mostly a massive waste of time.
Our morning meetings are efficient, enjoyable, and a good way for Noah to remind me to follow up with someone I talked to five weeks ago. Whatever you do: don’t call it a stand-up.
Onto the links.
An Article
When I started working at Vanity Fair as a clueless midwestern transplant dropped into Midtown Manhattan in the late aughts all my new coworkers regularly held up this 2004 VF piece about Johnny Cash and Rick Rubin as a paragon of magazine feature writing. I was listening to Dylan’s Nashville Skyline last week (Johnny Cash is on the opening track, Dylan’s best song, “Girl from the North Country”) and thought I should go back and read that old Vanity Fair piece. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
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A Project
After many conversations over many months with a potential new client, we finally got to scope some work for the rest of the year this week. We’re very excited. This section of the newsletter is really starting to feel like a redundant COMING ATTRACTIONS reel, but such is client services.
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A Coffee Shop
Location: Commonwealth Coffee | 300 Hamilton Row, Birmingham, MI
Pros: Very good drip coffee. Excellent tuna melt (with side salad). Solid wi-fi, which allowed me to login and write this newsletter. Ample space.
Cons: Too many G-Wagons parked out front. Also too many guys wearing Yeezys inside. Perhaps there’s a correlation here?
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A Ski Race
Back by popular demand: nordic skiing race reports.
I skied my first Birkie last weekend. What’s the Birkie? Glad you asked! The biggest ski race in North America and a cult where people ask you if “you have the fever?” (The Birkie Fever.) Have I lost you yet? One of my friends calls it “The Race Of the Century (That Happens Every Year).” It’s a who’s who of skiers, where local legends get to mix it up with former Olympians and washed up National Champions. 2018 Olympic Gold Medalist Kikkan Randall finished 369th overall.
On the most technical descents, drunken snowmobilers lined the corners chugging beers and ripping cigarettes cheering for skiers who crashed. It reeked of gasoline and Marlboros. Spectators put Mardi Gras beads around skiers’ necks at the top of climbs. After 47 kilometers of climbing, the treacherous course spits you out onto Lake Hayward, which was packed with fans passing out your energy drink of choice. “Gatorade! Jäger! Apple rye!” There was also a 20 mph headwind on the lake. I looked back halfway across and realized I was pulling a train of skiers through the wind because I’m a 6’3 spinnaker. The finish** is a scene: a 500-meter sprint up Hayward’s Main Street, lined with fans drinking beer, clanging cowbells, and the scent of brats and sauerkraut.
After he won the men’s race, Frenchman Gerard Agnellet told reporters “It is the best finish line of the entire distance skiing world.” He’s not wrong.
** When I texted Noah a picture of Main Street covered in snow two days before the race he said “looks like Santa’s Village.”
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Noah will be with you in two weeks and I’ll be back 365 days from now with another Birkie Race Report. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.