Every day I list at least ten items. I like to practice my idea muscle. Even if its my stupid idea muscle. They might be business ideas. Thoughts about the revolution. Book ideas. Ideas on how to improve my life. Or blog post ideas. Ideas on who I should be connecting with. And so on. They can be about anything. The ideas should never be about “these ten ideas will save my life or else”. It’s just to playfully exercise the idea muscle. Maybe one idea in six months will be “THE ONE”.
Here’s today’s list.
A) How to be less shy when public speaking: Here’s what you do: Picture YOURSELF naked. Everyone gives the advice, “picture everyone in the audience naked.” I guess that’s supposed to make you at ease somehow. Everyone naked. Haha.
But it’s bullshit. Picturing everyone in the audience naked sounds repulsive to me. How am I supposed to speak in a room filled with naked people? Do I want to have sex with them or something? I don’t get it. Please, everyone, keep your clothes on in my head so I can give this talk.What are you all doing with your clothes off? You, in the front, your wife’s salad dressing is dripping on your penis. Stop it.
Instead, do this: picture YOURSELF naked. And say, “I’m sorry folks. Someone gave me the advice that I should picture all of you naked. I’d rather not offend you in that way so for the next hour you should PICTURE ME naked while I talk.” You’ll get some laughs. You can begin your talk. And, if you’re built like me, you’ll probably get a lot of phone numbers at the end. (kidding)
B) Whores. Someone named Hyliry Love just added me to her Google+ Circles. I have no idea who she is. But of course I had to click on her profile. Who is named Hyliry Love?
She has this photo and says, “Alright boys i know aht i am and i know why i like it.. I like exactly what i am… I am a true whore and will mess around with anyone anyone want to be friends…”
I wonder what a “true whore” means? I guess a “whore” is someone who will do it for money but a “true whore” is someone who will also love you.
I notice that Zac Efron is also among the 40 people in her circles. And also there is someone who defines himself as a “Math Teacher”. I like that. Hyliry is a true whore. She likes Zac Efron, me, and she studies Geometry. I’m going to start using that affectionately. Like if a girl gives me the right change at the deli. I’m going to smile and say. “Thanks babe…you’re a true whore.”
C) Alec Baldwin is copying me. I don’t know patent law. But maybe there’s a utility patent here. Or a “process patent” or at least a trademark or a copyright. But he’s marrying his Hispanic yoga teacher. Just like me. I’ve sort of sensed that Alec Baldwin has been following me around for awhile. Like when I dream about him. I’m not gay but there it is.
But now I know. Alec Baldwin is also dreaming about me. Dreaming he wants to be me. In some parallel universe Alec Baldwin and I are friends and we go on double dates with our Hispanic yoga teachers. We talk about politics. They talk in Spanish and it sounds like a mini-operetta at the other end of the table. Alec and I laugh about that. Ahh, we’re just a bunch of gringos. Then Billy Baldwin comes along and he and Alec are talking and laughing and I feel by myself. I’m jealous. Billy, why did you have to come into this parallel universe?
D) The Witness Protection Program. Not a single person on the planet doesn’t want to be in the United States Witness Protection Program. So I’m going to tell you how. There’s lots of gangster types still walking around Chinatown in NYC. Here’s what you do: just follow them around. Walk about ten feet behind them. Whenever they turn around to look at you just look the other way. Oh, I was just looking at this Pig head in the random food store. Then keep following them around. The Feds will think you are one of them. Then testify against them. But first, make sure the FBI guarantees the Witness Protection Program. Then say, “yes, that guy is a low down thug. He killed Michael Jackson. He sent Osama Bin Laden all those porn videos.”
And now you’re in Boise, Idaho. They give you the name Alec Baldwin and everyone sort of jokes about it. The government sends you $9,000 a month. For the rest of your life.
E) When Does It Stop? I’m in Greenwich, CT as I write this. You can’t even see anyone’s house. They are all enormous but the gates are huge so you can’t see anything. Believe me. I’ve been trying. More on that later. But Claudia and I have been driving down every road that says “NO ACCESS -PRIVATE DRIVE” and we can’t see a single house. Because we are stalkers. Where is Occupy Wall Street when you finally need them?
After the 99% have finished killing off the 1% (Derek Jeter – I always wonder this – are you in the 1%? Like, clearly you are financially but do baseball players count? Is Miley Cyrus in the 1%?) then who is next? Now the 99% have become 100% of the people. Now there’s a NEW 1%. What do you do with them? Of course you have to kill them also to be consistent. It seems like the safest place to be is in the bottom 1%. Does Occupy Wall Street want to start tattooing our percentage numbers on our foreheads? Maybe that’s a solution.
F) Online Education. Finally! Someone is trying to disrupt education, which is like the last bastion of existence which hasb’t been fully disrupted and destroyed by the Internet. Benchmark Capital, a firm I greatly admire (art.com, Ebay!) just put 25 million dollars in an online university called Minerva. Named after the Roman goddess of Wisdom. They will be offering one degree. The MBA.
WHAT!?
Because of course, when you are a bunch of venture capitalists sitting around trying to decide what the world needs you think: Hmm, what is the one degree we should offer to make the world a better place. Urologists? No, my penis is fine. Cancer specialists? No, if anyone could cure cancer Steve Jobs would’ve done it. Potato Chip makers? No, Pringles has got that LOCKED DOWN. Hmmm, hmmm. Hey Bill, how about the MBA? I feel like too much of the truth about crap like Coca-Cola is getting out there. We need more marketers to have sexy girls drinking coke in commercials so nobody catches on.
At least, that’s how I hope the conversation went. That would be pretty cool if someone in a VC meeting discussing uses of 25 million dollars says, “No, my penis is fine.”
Because isn’t that what it’s all about anyway?
H) The Illuminati. On youtube there are a lot of videos suggesting Jay-Z is in the illuminati. I get it. He’s got “Barack on the text”. “you should know I bleed blue.” He has a song called “Lucifer”. And he’s married to Beyonce, who was clearly a gift from the rest of the illuminati to a guy that looks like Jay-Z.
I’m sick of all the people who hate the illuminati. Just admit it, if they slipped you an engraved invitation underneath your bedroom door in the middle of the night you would be as excited as a puppy dog. C’mon. Beyonce? You know you are in. Stop player-hating on the Illuminati. They control your life. They have secret powers. They know you read porn magazines in the bathroom. And they understand why there is a pyramid on the back of the dollar bill. You want to know that also. Stop all this racism against the Illuminati.
Also, why am I watching all of these videos about Jay-Z in the Illuminati?
G) What’s up with all the social media apps that tell me how many miles you ran today? Like, as soon as you run 8 miles it gets tweeted, facebooked, G+ed and I even see a photo on Pinterest of you sweating like a dog with a watermark over you of the number of calories you lost.
Do you think that is very social?
Let’s use common sense. Everyone seeing your “share” is sitting IMMOBILE AT A COMPUTER, for god’s sake! For hours. They aren’t moving. And I, for one, am eating a bag of potato chips right now. Think about it.
H) Cosmopolitan Table of Contents this month
- – How to Make Your Butt Look Amazing (with photos)
- – Dudes will Do Anything To Get You in Bed. Case in Point….
- – Sweet Things Guys Do on the Sly
- – Sex tricks – Wow him every single time
- – Steamy ways to turn you on
- – 10 Kinky Light Moves He Can’t Resist [Note from me: are they going to shine a flashlight on me naked? I don’t think I like that one]
- – Guess that Sex Position?
The Economist Table of Contents this month
- – Message to Ankara
- – The Yangon Spring
- – Geothermal energy in Japan
- – From Brussells, with shove [Note from me: hahahaha. That’s funny]
- – The Wenzhou Experiment
- – Marjorie Dean internships [Note: highly coveted]
- – Istanbuls and bears
- – Sexy spies and Islamofacism [store for later reading]
All bullshit aside, Cosmopolitan is clearly a superior magazine. And Cosmopolitan has perfume in it. I feel like I’m on a date with a sex goddess when I’m reading Cosmo. And yes, I read Cosmo. I need those sex tips more than I need a Marjorie Dean internship (unless she’s a true whore).
I) Oxymoron: Family vacation. Kids are not fun. The only thing you do on a vacation with kids is constantly be alert so they don’t drown somewhere. Not fun.
J) My tenth idea is ideas for tdp.me before I launch even an alpha out of it. I want to create a site that people can use for free to help them track what I call the Daily Practice. The idea is to not track “progress” but to just simply “track”, see what other people are doing, get more ideas on how to improve your life, and see how life changes over time. Essentially, a Facebook timeline but about improving yourself and without “the Facebook”. Adding the ability to browse other public profiles this week and adding a Q&A function that anyone can use to add some gamification and viral attributes. Should be fun. All suggestions welcome.
And that’s how you do it.