An oasis is a spot where you get much-needed water. But what happens when you have a studio space overlooking the Pacific Ocean that is rustic, filled with character, textured in redwood and brick—and happens to be an underground bunker on three sides and is perfect for a fledgling media outfit?
We found this sink. It arrived on a pallet, delivered by a huge truck. We’ve been waiting a long time for this sink.
I am 57 and my business partner Shady is 67. We are investigative satirists who go after the people who want to make you sick by getting you to cram deadly foods and beverages down your otherwise pristine piehole.
No debt, no investors, no credit lines. We are bootstrapping Life Points LLC with our own money. Shady has started companies like this multiple times. For me, this is the third time. Ten years ago, I bootstrapped my asset management company, which I own 100%. Five years ago, Shady and I started a second asset management company that we share. My bio is here. Shady’s is here.
Shady says, “The purest form of democracy is the blank page. There it sits, heckling you like a dunk-tank clown: ‘Come on, loser! You call yourself a writer, an entrepreneur, a performer, a story maker?! Show us what you can do!’”
To produce what we want to produce, the way we want to produce it, we need a lot of equipment: cameras, speakers, high-definition screens, lights, control boards, and so on. We have a small studio, about 550 square feet, but it has 12-foot ceilings—perfect for media production.
We have one rule: when you are speaking, you must be standing. Never sit on camera.
We have no neighbor on one side. On the other side is a well-known tailor. The owner is 75 years old and has been a tailor all her life. She works six days a week and still moves like a spring chicken—which is great, because chickens play a big role in our series, considering God struck Shady dead as he was choking down a freebie on National Fried Chicken Sandwich Day. When we need a costume made or an alteration, we just walk out of our studio and make a right turn. She is right there, the perfect neighbor for us.
When Shady decides to do something, he works like a madman. Within a couple of months, we had cameras everywhere, lights hanging from the ceiling, thousands of cables, multiple devices pointing at the stage he designed and built, and control boards with over 60 buttons live-switching scenes from one to the next.
Shady works fifteen hours a day, seven days a week. The only time he takes a break is to use the common-area bathroom in the alley—and I suspect sometimes not even then, though I can’t prove it.
It is perfect. Well—almost perfect. The thing is, Shady sometimes eats three meals a day in there. Audit Shady’s Piehole for yourself!
Shady publishes his intake in near-real time. I can see that minutes ago he finished a 2.5-pound organic salad from Jimbo’s Salad Bar with quinoa, celery, carrots, chickpeas, diced white chicken meat, cucumbers, corn, peas, and a few sprinkles of parmesan cheese with probiotic balsamic vinaigrette.
He uses a microwave to heat up the food he brings from home, prepared by his long-suffering wife, Julie. One day, I stopped by the studio and opened the microwave.
“OMG, how could you live like this?!” I screamed.
The microwave had food particles from eons ago glued to the surface. At some point, he must have exploded the guts of an egg and did not clean it up.
It was so gross!
It was not totally Shady’s fault. He has been a clean person, according to Julie. The issue was that there were no plumbing pipes in the studio, hence no water to wash things off. Shady had to buy bottled water from the store just to make coffee.
“It would be nice to be able to make scrambled eggs in the morning and cook some chicken in a skillet—once I have water to wash things off,” Shady commented after I calmed down from my shock.
Such are Shady’s modest wishes. I decided to make his wish my command. Shady works so hard; he was sent back to Earth on a mission from God, armed with a Matthew 7:1 Waiver. “Judge not, lest ye be judged” does not apply to Shiny & Shady. We are fully authorized to judge others without consequence, as long as such judgment is restricted to their behavior when it comes to choosing what they cram down their piehole.
That’s when it hits me. At home, we have sinks everywhere. Why can’t we install a sink here?
I found a pipeless sink. It is a fancy-looking sink with an elegant, modern design. The most important part is that it does not need to be connected to plumbing at all. Two hidden tanks hold clean water and wastewater. Plug it into an electrical outlet, press the foot pedal, and running water magically appears.
This is genius!
The sink arrives in a month. Shady and I have never been so excited about a sink! With this sink in the studio, anything is possible.
Shady eats 20 pounds of produce a week. Now he can actually wash it! We can make fresh salads, eat more fruit, and get more protein. Shady can enjoy his favorite scrambled eggs and sautéed chicken. He may even look more handsome if he can fit his head under the sink and give his hair a nice, fresh wash.
As for me, I will sleep better knowing that I will no longer be having nightmares from Shady’s creepy microwave.