Unmoored

The art of finding your way

It was a dark and stormy night.

It’s been a bit of a disjointed year here at Three Point Four Media. This is both unavoidable and entirely my fault. Things happen. Life goes on. The work continues. We talk every morning at 9 a.m., Monday through Thursday. A good way to set up the day, discuss whatever Michigan sporting event happened the previous evening (go Tigers), keep track of what we are working on, etc. etc. We also have a word doc with yearly goals, some financial, some tactical, some existential (these are my favorite ones).

Still, I’ve been feeling a bit adrift since returning. There’s a gulf between daily goals and yearly goals. Solution: Pivot to quarterly. While “identify specific, attainable goals for the near future” is not a revolutionary idea, we are a small business of two bozos who are feeling our way through things. In this video, triathlete Sam Long talks about his goals for the world championships and stresses the importance for ones that are quantifiable. Establishing success or failure is important. (His goal was 10th; he finished 14th. We’ll ignore that part.)

We’ve been talking a lot about process recently, perhaps too much. But success comes from checking boxes. Hard to do if you don’t know what the boxes are. We love positive momentum; you have to get somewhere eventually. Zeno’s Paradox is a bad place for a business, although it would be an exceptional business name.

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An article

Source: AP Photo/Jacqueline Larma

Jill Biden knows exactly how many restaurants Stephen Starr has opened: 43. A weird fact to memorize. (Joe, of course, got it wrong.) The Times goes long on the man behind many versions of Pastis, Parc in Philly, and a few dozen others that gross more than $400 million a year. No word on profit margin, but the man drives a top-of-the-line Mercedes-Benz so he must be doing okay. It’s a bit of a glow up and you can feel the need to be taken seriously (a long-running theme in profiles about Starr), but a good read regardless. The man just wants to open restaurants.

Opening nights, Mr. Starr said, are his saddest moments. The dreaming, planning and designing is over. Everything after that is just work. Once the restaurant fills up and everything is running smoothly, he said, “I just want to go home.”

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A show

Setting: Smartless podcast studio

Will Arnett [breathless]: “Bateman! Fantastic! What a role! Love the hair. So long. So dirty. So unkempt. You’re so good at that dark, charismatic anti-hero. How do you get in that headspace?”

Bateman: “Thanks bro. [Endless monologue about process referencing multiple semi-related anecdotes from 30-plus years ago.]”

Sean: “And Jude Law. Jude. Law. I love Jude Law. Sherlock Holmes. A young Albus Dumbledore. Contagion. Contagion! What a movie. Remember the pandemic? This show though, Jason, it’s a love letter to New York City. Such a love letter. A. Love. Letter. It oozes that je ne sais quoi of NYC.”

Arnett [somehow still breathless]: “Look at Sean with his big words. Bateman, you directed, too! You dirty dog!”

Batemen: “Thanks bro. [Endless monologue about process referencing multiple semi-related anecdotes from 30-plus years ago.] ”

Sean: “Of course, we’re talking about the Bateman’s Netflix show, Black Rabbit. Which brings us to our guest, Bad Bunny. You’ve been sitting here for quite some time.”

Bad Buddy: [Left 20 minutes ago]

Podcasts are dumb. But Black Rabbit is a lot of fun.

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A project

One thing we like to do occasionally here at TPF is write for ourselves. Stretch the old muscles, you know? To that effect, I started contributing to FOUND NY, a newsletter about interesting stuff in New York City. (I do not like vanity capitalization but as someone who spent years saying it’s mediabistro.com not Mediabistro, I am sympathetic to publications.)

In a recent edition, I wrote about Vowels in Chinatown, one of the most relaxing places I have been. I also did the golf stuff but no byline. Sadface. In upcoming issues, there will be a couple routines I worked on, another menswear shop, and my favorite coffee beans. Consider subscribing. They have other cities, too.

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A book

I agree with Tyler Cowen.

I stumbled onto Dan Wang a few years ago due to the year-end letters he would write. I want to say it was 2019? But it could have been a bit later or earlier. The point is, I very much enjoyed his deep thinking and contemplative prose about living in China. Breakneck takes that formula and expands it, a couple hundred pages of recent history as the country transformed from a relative backwater to a global powerhouse that’s very much misunderstood by Americans. The direction of the world makes more sense after reading the book.

I met a guy for lunch the other day and I was carrying the book. He asked me how I liked it. I, honestly, answered “I think it’s great.” “That’s cool,” he said. “I edited it.” New York. Whatta town.

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A run

Big reservoir guy.

I have been working out on Wednesday mornings with a friend who is faster and fitter and more dedicated than I am. Not a great combination for yours truly. Also, if we are fully sandbagging here, I think I was a little sick on this day. The plan was 2x3miles at 6:15-6:20/mile pace with a three-minute rest in between. I survived the first one (6:14s, thank you very much), then took a 10-minute respite, and ran with David for the last two miles of the second rep (6:14s again). It’s been awhile since I got that close to throwing up while running. We’ll call that a win as a training session for a half marathon in 98 days.

Thanks for reading. Next week, a Q&A with a good buddy. Until then, Rae Rae.