June 2022
This newsletter is a collection of things I have found in the last month that I enjoyed, found interesting, or simply wanted to share.
You can follow me more closely at my personal website or if you or someone you know is looking to buy or sell a home, you can point them to my real estate website.
Gig Economy
The Real Yacht Rock: Inside the Lavish, Top-Secret World of Private Gigs
But alongside the world of corporate parties and retreats, a far more shadowy parallel world has been flourishing: the super-private gig. In that universe, stars in classic rock, hip-hop, and pop have been pulling in sizable fees for playing at weddings, birthday parties, anniversaries, and other personal-life milestones, all for those wealthy enough to afford it. The festivities allow performers to walk away with yacht-loads of cash and make one-percenter hosts feel like insiders and stars themselves. But along with the sizable paydays come sometimes dicey political issues that the artists have to navigate (or, sometimes, ignore).
Cowboy rides into town on Friday, stays 3 days, leaves on Friday. How did he do it?
An oral history of ‘Little Big League’
Tony Todd (Mickey Scales, 2B): I crashed the audition. I never acted before. I was coming home with a friend of mine, and we passed by a park where we used to play. There were easily 250 people out there on that field. I got out of the car and I went over there to see what was going on, and they said they were casting movies. I said, by the looks of things, and I’m not tooting my horn, I’m probably better than anyone you got out there. And they said, “Yeah, we’ve been hearing that all day.” I said, alright, well, give me a shot and I’ll show you.
Scheinman: The casting director goes, “What’s your name again?” Todd goes, “Mickey Scales.” He just walks up and says “Mickey Scales.” He knew exactly what he was doing. We just didn’t know about him.
Todd: They put the L-screen up. They gave guys 10 swings; they gave me five. Four of them go to the fence and the last one I hit off the wall. They told me to run to first base. And, you know, brothers can run. So, I didn’t stop at first and decided to run all the way around and do a little slide at home.
Scheinman: He got people’s attention because his personality is larger than life. Boy, he was an athlete. He just jumped out when he was at the tryout.
Todd: Later, I show up at the studio for a reading. I get halfway done and they tell me to stop. They asked me if I’d ever been to Minnesota. I said, nope, but I know Kirby Puckett’s there! They said, “Well, that’s great because you’re going to Minnesota and you’re going to play the part of Mickey Scales.” I went berserk. I started high-fiving everyone.
The horse’s name is Friday.
Links
- ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens
- A Week in the Life: Stanford Women’s Golf
- Searching 32 million academic papers for obscene acronyms hidden in the titles
- There’s Evidence Humans Didn’t Actually See Blue Until Modern Times
- Have you ever seen better laminar flow?
- Potato Diet
- Parts of a Mechanical Watch
- When Negotiating a Price, Never Bid with a Round Number
- Why Your iPhone Adds Annoying Typos While Fixing Others
- The Inside Outtakes
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Do not hesitate to reply to this months email to share links, wisdom, or thoughts.
Thanks for reading. Have a great month,
Clay
How kind of you to make your way down here.
A bit about me: I can be interested in anything, for better or worse. I love photography, travel, golf, and baseball. My latest pursuit is learning the guitar. I write a rad newsletter that I publish monthly.