how to not succeed in business by really, really trying [part 2]

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so i'm in the car the other day and i flip over to a station where the host is interviewing some pioneer in the food truck craze currently sweeping the nation and as he congratulates the guy on his visionary genius, i shake my head and wonder what these hipster gourmets would think if they knew they'd been beaten to the punch a quarter-century ago.


and then i think, "i really need to get shitfaced and finish that post."

and if you have no idea what i'm talking about, go back and read part 1.

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by late may in that fateful year of 1985, the die was cast--the agreements were signed, the money was in place, time was short and we had to move if we wanted to launch by fall.

we found the RV on the first saturday we looked, snatched it cheaply and ruthlessly outta the hands of the new widow whose dead husband had tended it so carefully for us all those years, and had it safely back in the parking lot outside beau's apartment by nightfall.

where we'd work on it all that long, hot summer--from dawn til midnight, all day, every day--until its transformation from common, plebian motorhome to mobile full-service restaurant was complete.

how beau managed to sweet-talk his apartment management (not to mention his neighbors) into enduring all that racket all summer long i'll never know, but then i'll never know how he managed half the shit he pulled off while i knew him.

gutting the thing was easy--we removed everything from the inside we didn't need (i.e.,  everything but the bathroom), while carefully leaving the exterior shell intact.

i remember as we ripped her apart we scoffed at how flimsy and lightweight the construction was, without taking even a moment to consider why.  we'd find out later when we took our twelve-ton, solidly 2x4-reconstructed behemoth out for her first swaying, tire-flattening, zero-to-60-in-two-minutes drive.  god, we could be so stupid.

but by god, we did it--into a cramped space scarcely larger than the sorta jail cell that'd make amnesty international blanch, we managed to fit (a) a custom high-heat three-wok cooktop; (b) a prep area; (c) a three-compartment sink [even though we'd never use it--and even now, 25 years later, may i just say fuck you very much for that little space-eating requirement, city of austin health department]; (d) a bathroom; (e) refrigerated undercounter food storage; (f) a huge noise-isolated generator; and, last but not least, (g) room enough for two people to move around each other and cook.  that motherfucker was an engineering marvel if i do say so myself--and this, largely thanks to beau.

but she was beautiful, too.  unlike the utilitarian food trucks of today, ours was open on three sides, thanks to the huge 3x5 horizontal-sliding windows i picked up at the home-improvement store [safety glass?  we dun' need no stinkin' safety glass], and her interior was a masterpiece of artfully illuminated resin-coated butcher-block and stainless steel.  we wanted people looking in (hell, i even designed a special ribbed-steel ceiling, knowing our customers would be slightly below us looking up).

and, of course, we pulled it off for next to nothing--whatever our differences, that's the way beau and i both rolled.

i'd give anything to have pictures of the thing; problem was, by the time we were finished, we were too exhausted for such niceties--all i've got to show for the effort are some of the promotional materials.

i don't remember exactly at what point our little walk-up chinese restaurant became "WokUp"--i'm pretty sure it happened early on--but once we had the name, the rest clicked together in my brain pretty quickly (because, for better or worse, i was the advertising and art department for this operation).

hell, our logo couldn't possibly be anything but a walking wok, right?

and yeah i know real woks don't have lids--just go with it, ok?

here's our first flyer (with a dollar-off coupon on the other side):

and the mock-up for our first print ad:

kinda cute, huh?  well, considering how bone-weary and brain-dead i was by the time my young, amateurish ass had to conjure all this shit into being, it coulda been a lot worse, trust me.

whatever--by late august and right on schedule, our mobile kitchen was a thing of beauty, our menu perfected and our ad campaign complete.  beau and mkf were finally ready to take their show on the road.

and as exhausted as we were, we were also exhilarated--i mean, having survived our summer-long trial by fire, it had to be smooth sailing ahead, right?  i mean seriously, how wrong could things go?

stay tuned:  in part 3 i'll count the ways.

alvaro update

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you remember alvaro, right?  well, since last we visited his haunted ass in february, much has happened.

probate finally closed on dead george's estate in late april, with the entirety of same going, as expected, to dead george's brain-addled mother.

which immediately prompted mean brother #1 to call alvaro and crow to him at the top of his lungs, "pack up, you faggot motherfucker, because we're finally gonna get your ass evicted."

alvaro, seeing the handwriting on the wall, packed his shit and awaited the sheriff's knock.

but a funny thing happened on the way to court:  on the day before george's mother [or whoever was gonna guide her hand] was to sign the eviction papers, she very obligingly dropped dead.

whether or not dead george called his mama home at just the right time isn't the point of this post--all alvaro knows is, the probate clock has just reset, and he's been granted at least another year by the people's republic of california before he has to worry about george's mean brothers tryin' to throw him out again.

god, karma's a bitch--don't you love it?

fuck yeah!

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if you came over here today looking for my usual dark, cynical take on the day's events you're gonna be disappointed, because today i'm taking off the tinfoil hat and joining the rest of america in a long-overdue celebration.

that's right, bitches, today i'm proud of my government and i'm proud of my president--hell, i'm even proud of the goddam military-industrial complex.

i'm even happy to say that i, mkf, was wrong. about what, you ask?  allow me to explain.

see, bill clinton had several chances to get this motherfucker back in the late 90's, and, fearful of the blowback if things went to shit, cravenly pulled back at the last minute every time.  and george bush?  had him dead-to-rights in tora bora in 2001, choked, and let him slip through his fingers.  and boy, have we paid for their collective indecisiveness and timidity a thousand times over.

which is why i gotta hand it to this president and his team--i honestly didn't think he had it in him.

this was an operation that was fraught with potential peril at every level of execution--anything and everything coulda gone not only wrong, but disastrously wrong, and it would've all landed on his head.  and by god, he stepped up--or, in this case, stepped back and had the courage to allow the experts to do what they do best.   and that, as often as not, is what good presidentin' is all about.

tomorrow we'll be right back where we were yesterday. but today?  today is that rare day in guttermoralityland when mkf is proud to say something he never imagined he'd have cause to say during the course of this administration:  "kudos, mr. president--well played".

sober update:  i am already embarrassed by this post.

this can only end badly

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h/t clusterstock

"down, boy--he's 80"

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my mother's response last night when she catches me staring at the above snapshot in one of her old junior-college scrapbooks.

the whole rutgers thing

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dharun ravi--wow, this guy just looks like a douchebag, doesn't he?  even in two dimensions, he fairly oozes that smug, shiny, well-fed arrogance peculiar to his kind.  this is the sorta kid for whom college and life beyond were supposed to be as effortlessly golden as the childhood he'd left behind.

guess not so much anymore, huh?

because, see, this is also the sorta kid who, since time immemorial, has taken it as his god-given right to make a living hell outta the not-so-golden lives of kids like

tyler clementi. even my two-sizes-too-small heart aches every time i look at this picture and imagine his tortured last hours, and think of the promise lost.

but that doesn't stop me from asking whether his tormentor should really be facing a 10-year prison sentence for what seems on its face no more than a malicious, stupid prank--and yeah, i mean no matter how horribly wrong it went.

before i go any further, lemme just say that (a) i'm not a lawyer, legal expert or constitutional scholar; and (b) i don't have all the facts of the case as presented to the grand jury that returned the indictment--when i do, my opinion may change.

but from what i can tell, mr. ravi's being charged with a "hate" crime (whatever that even means), because his victim (a) was gay; and (b) killed himself, presumably as a result of mr. ravi's actions [i'm inferring this last part, because even though the prosecutor denies it, i think it's safe to assume that we wouldn't be talking about a 10-year prison sentence had mr. clementi not jumped off the bridge].

so i have a couple questions:

• are mr. ravi's actions criminal only because his victim was gay?  in other words, if some future douchebag does this to his nerdy straight roommate--say, a fundamentalist christian kid who hangs himself because, to him, the thought of his fornication being exposed to the world is worse than death--will he be charged with a hate crime, too?  and if so, into what protected class does said straight roommate fall?  and if not, then why is what happened to the gay kid worse than what happened to the straight kid, and where is equal justice under the law?

• or are mr. ravi's actions criminal only because his victim killed himself?  in other words, if he'd picked a thicker-skinned gay kid to psychically bash, would we even be talking about this?

• what if the doubtless charming mr. ravi,  his presumed dream-team of attorneys and an endless string of character witnesses manage to snow a jury into believing mr. ravi doesn't have a homophobic bone in his body, and that he was just goofing on a roommate--is what he did still a crime?

you see where i'm going with this?  with the introduction of the "hate crime" concept, all of a sudden it's not about what the perpetrator actually did anymore; we have to bring the thought police in, because it becomes all about what was in his heart, what his intentions were, and whether or not he did it to a member of a special, protected class of people--the actual crime kinda gets lost in the confusion.

and that's where my problem with hate crime legislation and protected classes lies.  yeah, when it comes to crime, we're all equal under the law--except, of course, for those of us who are more equal (or more hateful) than others.

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having said all that, would i want a guy who gay-bashed me or anybody i care about charged with a hate crime?  you bet your sweet ass i would--and not only him, but his mama, daddy, pre-natal nurse, obstetrician and/or anybody else who was responsible for bringing his hateful ass into the world.


which is why you're not supposed to let vengeful victims or their advocates write the laws--but that, in essence, is exactly what's happened with hate crime legislation.

and speaking of things i was right about

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since our deal with the middle east has always involved protecting oppressive dictatorships in exchange for cheap dollar-denominated oil, and since we now seem to be throwing said oppressive dictators under the bus one after another, i'm wondering how long before the saudis wake up and start shopping around for better protectors [like the chinese and/or russians, for example--both of whom abstained from the libya vote]. . .

mkf, a few weeks ago

 turns out it didn't take 'em long at all.




as for the second part of the above quote,

. . . and we find ourselves up shit creek, crude-wise.

lemme put it this way:  when the saudis talk about "expanded business opportunities" with the russians and chinese, they ain't talking about sending 'em sand.

look, the prospect of $9 gas doesn't bother me much personally--hell, i bought my prius a year ago, and anything that gets the riff-raff off the streets and frees up traffic can't be all bad--but what's coming is gonna hurt america, and it's gonna hurt us bad.

[h/t to john for sending me the above clip]