This weekend I broke my haircut fast.  I had to do it.  It was beginning to affect my attitude at work.  I hate not cutting my hair when it’s time, and people were actually starting to comment on it:

“Greg, why are you in such a rotten mood?”

“I’m on a haircut fast. I want to delay cutting my hair so my trip in September falls into my natural hair cycle.”

“Huh...that’s really interesting...I didn’t know that.”

“Know what?”

“That you’re actually a woman.”

When I finally got the hair cut, I was stunned at the result. I mean, I knew my tumbleweed was about three weeks past its normal expiration date, but holy chemo!  I couldn’t believe the clumps of hair that rained down to the ground.  I’m pretty sure I saw a few Ewoks fall to the floor, get up, and scurry out the door.

I’d show you a before and after pic, but I now have so much pale skull showing that it’ll blind my digital camera.

In completely unrelated news, I recently sent an email to this site’s membership and asked if anyone felt like giving me a cheap book cover, since I was considering collecting some of this blog into a downloadable eBook.  A friend of mine who was a graphic designer in a former life immediately sent me one.  It made me laugh, and so therefore I must share it.

SHE: I dunno, I’ll ask him.

(Calls over the cube wall)

SHE: Greg, is there an apostrophe in “surf’s up”?

ME: Yes, because it stands for “the surf is up.”

SHE: And what about “bottoms up”?

ME: No, because “bottoms” is plural, not a possessive or a contraction.

SHE: (back to the phone) Okay, he says there’s an apostrophe in the first one but not the second....I dunno, I guess because the surf is definitely the surf but with the second there’s just a whole bunch of bottoms.

I’ve written before about how much I hate Oprah’s insistence on putting herself on the cover of her magazine, O, each and every month.  How self-aggrandizing do you have to be to take the center stage all the time at the expense of other worthy cover subjects?  Like turmoil in the Middle East, Paris Hilton, or ravioli?

But recently I bought myself a subscription to the magazine, because I realized that this could actually be pretty cool.  Let’s say O is made each and every month for the next 50 years.  If you clipped all the covers and put them side by side, you would eventually see a progression.  Oh sure, first Oprah would appear young and attractive:

As the years went on, she’d fight the aging process but you would begin to see definite cracks in the armor:

And finally?  That’s right.  Ladies and gentleman, the cover to O magazine, 50 years down the road:

“Don’t look at it, Marion!”

Anyway, I think the whole thing will make a great stop motion movie.  I look forward to screening it at arthouses across the country--or on YouTube--however the hell people are watching movies in 50 years.  Obviously, it’ll be for strong stomachs only.

You’re deep in thought but
You’re only reading Burnt Toast
by Teri Hatcher.

I told the people I was with in Forth Worth that I wanted to skip the “nice place” routine and go somewhere authentic for a steak.  And we did.  It was located on a street with no less than two grimy storefronts offering piercings and tattoos; people apparently hate waiting in lines around here.  When we walked in, a midget swirled around on his bar stool, as though he was an automaton in a Disney ride, and said “Come on in and sit down!” I’ve always thought that you can tell the best places to eat because they greet you with a midget.

Inside the room was dark and narrow, and filled with fierce looking tough guys and even fiercer looking mothers with their kids.  The waitress asked us what we wanted to drink.  I recited dutifully “I WOULD LIKE A SHINER BOCK,” which I was told was the local beer.  But saying this marked me as an outsider (y’know, as opposed to my hair and clothes) because you’re just supposed to say “I’d like a Shiner.” (My companions assured me that this wasn’t a surefire way to get punched in the eye.)

The steak was just a touch overdone but heavy and good, and the beer came in large, frosted glasses big enough to put my foot into.  It was delicious, but I’m glad we were able to eat in peace that night.  When one of my associates joked to the waitress that we’d like to see the wine list, she smirked, “No wine list honey, but aside from that anything goes in here.” I looked around at all the animal heads mounted on the wall and the rest of the steakhouse’s clientele and decided that I’d rather eat than get into a bar fight--even though I was pretty sure that I could take the midget.

I have to fly to Fort Worth, Texas on Thursday for business.  I was reviewing the hotel I’m staying at to ensure they had stuff like a gym and high-speed Internet.  I scanned their list of guest amenities, and discovered a guest service I had never heard of before:

“Boot delivery”

(Actual photo from the hotel web site.)

Now that’s Texas.

This weekend I went to Tahoe with my accomplished friends.  For example, here’s a new friend we made--Scenery. Scenery made all of this:

Unfortunately, we couldn’t take Scenery home with us.

Here are my friends Matt and Su:

They recently came back from Amsterdam. They get up at 5 a.m. most mornings and work out for an hour.  They are so well-adjusted and nice that they could give Katie Couric insecurities.

Then there’s my friend Tuan, who is taking three months off work to go to Africa.

Just think about telling your co-workers that.  “Screw you guys, I’m going to Africa.  No, I won’t be checking my blackberry.  And if there’s a crisis with a project--just think of Darfur and leave me the hell alone.”

Lin is on the left. He made a baby, which is pretty cool.  Regardless of whether he followed the recipe book or just went on instinct, I’m still impressed.

Ruben, on the right, made several hundred dollars at craps and video poker.

(Note the young child with his shiny pink water bottle right next to a half-finished bottle of Guinness.  Babies and beer--that’s just how a bunch of 30somethings roll.)

Then there’s me.  I once made sangria using white zinfandel.  It tasted terrible and it was not a big success.

On the other hand, I’m two weeks into my Barber Fast, and only two weeks to go.  Why am I fasting from getting a hair cut, even though I desperately need one?  Because if I put it off for just two more weeks, I won’t have to get my hair cut again until I come back from my trip to Ireland in September, which will put the trip perfectly within my normal hair cycle.  And the only thing I have to do is suck it up for a few weeks as my hair starts getting all clumpy on the sides, kind of like Princess Leia’s do in Episode IV.  That’s a pretty solid accomplishment, right?

So, I guess in the final analysis, my friends are impressive but I can still hold my own.

And another thing I hate: the name “snow peas.” They’re not peas.  They don’t look or taste anything like peas.  Why call them peas?

If you call brussel sprouts “snow carrots,” you have accomplished nothing.  So why snow peas?

I refuse to go along with this any longer.  In protest, I’m renaming them “green lentils.”

It’s still hard to believe that North Korea fired long-range missiles. We took all the trouble of invading Iraq, and it turns out that the Weapons of Mass Destruction were somewhere else.  Boy, is our face red!  Who knew that hunting for WMDs is like searching for your car keys?  They’re always in the last place you look.

Japan is concerned about the launch, and they’re continuing to make noises about building up their military forces again.  Japan has been a pacifist nation since the end of World War II, when the United States wrote into their constitution that they couldn’t use force to resolve disputes.  Personally, I think we should simply bargain with Japan. They want to start building up their military again?  Fine--make a Godzilla movie with an actual plot and no cute kids, and maybe we can talk.

Over a hundred people have died in Iraq over the last few days, but the administration refuses to call what’s going on in Iraq “a civil war.” Notice how people just avoid the labels that they don’t like, even if they fit?  This morning, the Bay Area’s BART transit system broke down.  Officials called it “a gap in service.” No, you idiots, being five minutes late is a gap in service.  Not showing up for an hour is breaking the hell down. 

The thing that gets me is when people like Bush and Condoleeza make “surprise visits” to Iraq or Afghanistan.  What’s that all about?  What purpose does it serve?

“Hey, it’s me, President Bush!  Surprise!”

“Oh.  Uh...hi.  Yeah, it’s true, we didn’t expect you. So--what did you bring us?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you have an exit strategy?  A way to get our country out of this spiral of bloodshed and violence?”

“Um, no.  I’m just, y’know, showing up.  Where people don’t expect it.  Hey look!  It’s me!”

(blank stare)

“Um, okay, if you need me, I’ll be hanging out in Air Force One.  For an hour or so.  Until it’s time to fly home.”

The fact is, the Revolutionary War started in 1775 and the British surrendered in 1781. That’s six years.  We’ve been fighting in Iraq for four years, and we’ve accomplished squat.  America is actually worse at fighting wars than we were hundreds of years ago.  We’re hopeless at staging battles unless they involve Captain Jack Sparrow or Keira Knightley.  Or maybe we could just send in Jack Bauer. You know how long it would take him to wrap up Iraq?  I mean, I don’t know, but I’m guessing a day--tops.

Most of us get up in the morning with a genuine desire to make some sort of positive impact.  We want to reach end of the day and have witnessed some sort of incremental progress, or accomplished something either small or substantial.  And we hope to be rewarded as a result of our efforts.  Some of us wish to see an accumulation of friends and family, while some of us wish to acquire money and power.  Some may want all of these things.  And sometimes we don’t see these rewards at all, because we fail utterly.  But even when we do fail, there’s a consolation in the idea that we tried.  There’s a kind of integrity in having put forth our best effort.  There’s a purity in it that consoles us even when we realize that, in the final analysis, we just weren’t good enough.

Which is why the whole concept of failing up is so damn hard to take.

You’ve seen examples of this in your own life.  You’ve seen people at work who mismanaged a budget, botched a project, and treated colleagues like radioactive debris.  And what happened? They were promoted.  And we don’t just see this in our day-to-day lives.  Examples of failing up are everywhere.  Here are just three:

Kate Bosworth.
Her failures:
Starred in Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! (Box office failure)
Starred in Beyond the Sea (Box office failure)

Rewarded with:
Major role as Lois Lane in summer blockbuster Superman Returns

And did she acquit herself?  Listen, she looked and acted around thirteen years old.  Her character was supposed to have won a Pulitzer Prize!  When exactly did she win a Pulitzer?  Was that three weeks or four after she outgrew the Powderpuff Girls?

I kind of liked the movie, but Kate was the worst Lois ever.  Roseanne Barr could have done a better job as Lois. The lady who cuts my hair could have done a better job as Lois.  You know what?  Forest Whitaker could have done a better job as Lois.  First, go out and see Superman.  Then come back and look at this post, with Bosworth’s performance still seared into your memory, and tell me if you don’t think: “Hmm. Big middle-aged black guy.  Lois Lane.  Yeah, it could totally work.”

Anyway, enough about Lois.  I won’t bring it up again.  Then there’s:

George W. Bush
His failures:
Unsuccessfully ran for congress
Unsuccessfully ran a gas and oil company

Rewarded with:
Two terms as President of the United States, most powerful man in the world

Despite all this, of course, I would rather have seen George W. as Lois Lane than Kate Bosworth:

Sorry, I’m really done with that.  Finally, there’s also

Mankind
Failures:
Routinely hunt down and kill one another because of irrelevant differences in race, gender, and/or religion
Two world wars in the last century plus proliferation of nuclear weapons across the globe

Rewarded with:
Over 6 billion people on the planet, more than any other time in history
TIVO upgrade that allows shows to be downloaded directly to iPod for convenient viewing

Despite all of this complaining, I don’t actually want a career path in which I fail forward.  I like striving to the best of my ability, and it’s really none of my business if other people find a different, more corrupt way to succeed in life.  Still--I’m not entirely sure what I would say if someone proactively approached me and offered me the chance to fail up.  What if they suggested that failure be written into my job description, with specified metrics for slacking off that would put money in my pocket?  I’m worried that I would begin to turn it down, and then catch myself and say “You have a deal.  If you need to talk to me for the rest of the day, I’ll be taking a nap under my desk.”