Breaking Up………Au Voir, Viedersehen, & Bonne Nuit

Best Experienced With:    Lisa Sanders;     Rainbows

(Please right click on the link below to open the suggested background music to this evening’s gathering in a new browser window.   Lisa Sanders is an amazing artist…you really should right click on the link.    Close your eyes the first time through and just soak in the music.   Then….read and laugh and cry.   Thank you, Lisa Sanders, for the perfect background song.)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnsT5QAyWrc

Since birth, have been an atrocious breaker upper.    Especially two forms of breaking up:  breaking up with significant others and terminating employees.   Each verb phrase takes an amount of courage absent in me since birth.  Have done both scores of times throughout the years and while I’d like to say they get easier with practice, they don’t.  While I’d like to say that I got better at each with practice, I haven’t.    Did a poor job breaking up with my first girlfriend in fourth grade.    Did an equally poor job of breaking up with my last girlfriend in 2009.

I’ve dated people months and years longer than I wanted to, hoping they’d get in a car wreck or perhaps move to another state so I didn’t have to say the requisite “it’s not you, it’s me”, “this is not working out”, or “I’ve actually ‘dated’ four hundred seventy three other women while you and I have been dating.”    We men tend to be cowards about breaking up with women for three primary reasons.   Reason One is we are unable to accurately and/or honestly answer the scores of rhetorical questions sure to follow the breakup.    These unanswerable questions (“then why did you say you love me?”, “then why did you sleep over last night?”, “does this mean we are not really, truly soul mates?”, “can I keep the money?”, ad infinitum)“ are exponentially more terrifying than the actual breakup because the questions can go on for days or weeks and you will most likely position yourself in front of the door while running the inquisition.    Which is why for years I have chosen to date only those who live in ranch style homes or rent places on ground floors.    Reason Two is we hate to see you cry.   Because you are very, very beautiful.

Reason Three is we men are terrified of the possibility that we may bump into you one week later on the arm of someone better looking, leaner, richer, and more well read.   Reason three accounts for ninety three percent of the reticence to break up with you.    Please keep that on the DL.   Reason Three is, of course, the most powerful.

Termination trepidation has two primary reasons in Mulliganville.    Reason One is that for the weeks leading up to terminations, would stay awake nights thinking of that person returning home to their significant other and children after our severance meeting.   Have never had a problem with explaining to a member of my team that this career adventure was a poor fit for both parties.   Have always had a problem picturing that person going home afterwards and explaining to their husband or wife that they are no longer gainfully employed.

Reason Two is no one likes to stand up and say “I was wrong”.   When you hire someone and it ends in termination, as the leader you were wrong.   Wrong about culture fit, wrong about skill set, wrong about shoe selection, wrong about musical taste, ad infinitum.    Very few like to raise their hand and say “I’m wrong”.

In many aspects of life, I am fearless.  When it comes to breaking up and terminations, my cowardice ranks in the highest quintile.   Am also a coward when it comes to euthanizing animals.  Have zero talent when it comes to breaking up with people, terminations, and euthanizanizing animals.

The talent of which I am most proud is my Doctor Doolittle like skills with animals.  Were I brighter, more adept at Chemistry, and if the twenty-eight veterinary schools in the United States reduced their admission criteria by eighty-two percent, I would be a veterinarian today.  My love of animals closely rivals my love of music, each slightly over eleven on a ten scale.  The feral cat herding and socializing skills began with Marsha, Jan, and Cindy in 1997 when they showed up, their feral mother dead, running single file through the alley behind my home….vainly trying to jump into trash dumpsters four thousand times their height.   Trapped them a week later with a smelly can of sardines, a pet carrier, and seventeen straightened out wire hangers tied to the pet carrier door.   Marsha, Jan, and Cindy lived in what is now the foster room, avoiding me like the plague for six weeks.

Cindy was the last of the three to approach me and permit the petting of the head and has remained the most aloof and independent for fourteen years.  This, of course, made me like her even more.  Made that adoption poster above and tore it up three days later when I realized I was going to keep the three morons.   Chez Mulligan had zero (0) cats at the time.   This house was once was underpopulated with cats.  Shocker.   Cindy has owned the upstairs portion of Chez Mulligan since day one and rules it with an iron fist.     She’s witnessed ninety-six percent of all business conversations held in this office since 1997, watching my conversations with bored eyes from the right.    When she gets really, really bored, Cindy will move forward a foot or two and cover up the current project.     Like this:

When we have guitar concerts in the living room, Cindy stays off on her own.

When she chose to share a cat bed with someone, Cindy would invariably choose to share the cat bed with Jan.

When she’d fall asleep, Ceeeeeeeeeeeatie would jump in next to Cindy.     Ceeeeeeeeeatie is a big Cindy fan.

 

Throughout 2009, one of the rescue cats living permanently in Chez Mulligan, Sage, vigorously battled cancer.    Had I the means and had MD Anderson Cancer in Houston the ability to treat felines, would have had Sage at MD Anderson in an aggressive cancer treatment program immediately.   Sage was on his last legs by December, 2009 and ready to head to heaven.   Kept delaying the inevitable for selfish reasons, reasons similar to the ones we all use to postpone break ups and terminations.  Scheduled a vet, Dr, Freeman, to come by the house to help him along.   Dr. Freeman was scheduled to come by at precisely 3:00 p.m. on December 23, 2009.

Dr. Freeman schedules a week ahead of time.  For the seven days leading up to December 23, I couldn’t sleep wondering what it would be like to look into Sage’s eyes as he passed.    Have had plenty of dogs and cats who have moved on, but have never scheduled the visit ahead of time, had time to think about it, or made the choice to say “push the syringe plunger”.   Am not good at breaking up.  Sage helped out with the breaking up back in 2009.

The evening of December 22, Sage and I hung out in the office together, drinking Pilsner beer, listening to “Round Here” by Counting Crows, and sharing stories of the our nine years together.    At eleven p.m. I carried Sage downstairs and we went to sleep for the last time.

I awake, fully alert and ready to play, at 4:45 a.m. every day.  Weekdays, weekends…..regardless of time zone….I awake at 4:45 a.m. Cali time.   Never earlier and later only when the prior evening is particularly adventurous or strewn with chaotic fun.  Awoke December 23 at 2:47 a.m., fully awake and ready to play.   Sage was not in the bed next to me.     Jumped up, found him in the bathroom in a pile of urine, and carried him up to his cat bed in the office.  At 3:00 a.m., he took one last breath, looked into my eyes, sighed a big sigh and passed on.  Dr. Freeman was scheduled to come precisely twelve hours later and I like to think that Sage chose to leave at precisely at 3:00 a.m. so that I would not have to go through December 23 thinking about having to make the choice to help him along later that day.    Was quite thankful I did not have to make that choice December 23, 2009, thanks to Sage.

Had to make that choice today when Dr. Freeman visited to help Cindy along to join Sage.   Cindy is now in heaven fighting Sage for kitty treats.   Cindy was a marvelous companion, a solid addition to my office, and a world champion purrer.

Cindy:  (Some Time in 1997-May 31, 2011)

Cindy passed away in her friend Mully’s arms peacefully at 11:27 a.m. on Tuesday, May 31 in the La Jolla Blvd. bed in which she daily sunbathed.  Cindy’s favorite hobbies were watching Dan work from two feet away on his desk, meowing loudly whenever anyone called on the business phone, and kitty treats.  Cindy loved her some kitty treats.   She also had the softest fur and the loudest purr of any cat in this galaxy or any other galaxy.  No cat will ever purr as loudly or as meaningfully as Cindy.   When revved up, people three counties over could hear Cindy purr.  Cindy is survived by her sisters Jan and Marsha, her step brothers Bruiser and Deeeeeeeeeeeogie and her step sister Ceeeeeeeeeeeeatie.

 

The music industry is quite perplexing.    If you chose to cue up the music suggestion above, you’re listening to an amazing singer song writer.    Had the good fortune of seeing Lisa Sanders make her magic with Steve Poltz at a coffee house in San Diego years ago.     She sang “Rainbows” and it was one of those moments when The Random smashes you into something that sticks, waiting for the right time to be your wing person.   Cindy and I sat in the office all weekend, drinking Pilsner beer, listening to “Rainbows”, and sharing stories of the last fourteen years.   All life things should be set to music for the correct emotification:  “Rainbows” was the perfect song for our last weekend together.     While listening, we each opined on how silly it is that Lisa Sanders has yet to have a platinum album, while Katy Perry has a recording contract.   Thank you for the perfect song for the occasion, Lisa Sanders.   You are quite amazing.  The music industry is quite perplexing.

Good bye, Cindy, I will miss your jet engine purr.   This Emily Dickinson is your going away card.

After great pain, a formal feeling comes

The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs

The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,

And Yesterday, or Centuries before?

 

The Feet, mechanical, go round

Of Ground, or Air, or Ought

A Wooden way

Regardless grown,

A Quartz contentment, like a stone

 

This is the Hour of Lead

Remembered, if outlived,

As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow

First …Chill …then Stupor… then the letting go.

For more about Sage, please click on the following link:

http://mindofmullybizhausshoppe.wordpress.com/2009/12/23/twas-on-lofty-vases-side-the-doctor-doolittle-diaries/

Niche Marketing @ Polar Ends of the Body Mass Index Spectrum (and some white zombie to get the weekend rolling)

 

Best Experienced With:          White Zombie:      More Human Than Human

(Please right click on the link below to open the suggested background song for this evening’s treatise in a new browser window.  Were I able to afford Stevie JC as my Chauceresque niche marketer, I would also pay a minivan to follow me everywhere I roam, blasting out this White Zombie ditty.     Just because.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFqBTSvBPAU

“Like satin sheets on a waterbed”.    That sentence has nothing to do with this missive on niche marketing.    It’s been rumbling around my noggin for a year, looking to get out.   Waking me up at three a.m., smacking me on the leg, looking for a place to live on a screen or on paper.

Have been mesmerized, perplexed, and intrigued by the giant inflatable purple gorillas on top of business establishments for decades.   That would be an interesting sales job; calling on business establishments and uncovering the unmet need for the giant purple gorilla.    “Hello.   How has your top line revenue growth been year to date?   How is that versus your 2011 budget?    Do you believe that if you put a large, purple gorilla on top of your establishment you would be closer to your top line revenue growth target?”   That would be an interesting sales and/or marketing gig.

The silliest assumption in business is oft spoken:  “this is a $1B market and if we only capture three percent of it over the next four years, we will be at $30M in revenue within the first forty-eight months.   That’s thirty million more in top line revenue growth!”   The best way to market is to niche market…plagiarized definition below:

“Marketing strategy whereby marketers devote 100% of their efforts toward a small segment of a market instead of the whole market. Niche marketing generally appeals to smaller companies with limited resources. Typically, the small market segment, or niche, has been overlooked or only casually served by other larger competitors but is still large enough to be profitable. There are several different niche marketing strategies: end user strategy, serving only one type of end user customer; vertical level strategy, specializing in one level of the production-distribution cycle; customer size strategy, selling products designed for only one size customer, such as petite or extra large clothes; service strategy, offering a service not available from any other company; and geographic strategy, selling only in one geographic area.”

The best way to market is to niche market.  Carefully choose a smaller segment of a segment and then go after that smaller segment of a segment as fiercely as David Hasselhoff goes after hamburgers when inebriated.   All market spaces are subdivided into market segments and, with the proper homework and strategic market analysis; you can carve a niche out of any market segment in any market space in the galaxy.  Find an unserved or underserved part of that market, develop a unique offering with differentiating features and benefits, and then begin marketing to that niche.

(Faulkner fans, get warmed up)

Take magazines, for example. Magazines are a market segment of the larger periodicals market.  A market dying a slow lingering death as children and the mentally infirm choose to read only in mouth bites 144 characters large.  There is a segment in the overall magazine market of “magazines for dumb people”, yet within this market segment there are further market niches.   There are “magazines for dumb people who cannot read” (People and US), “magazines for people who can read and have suspended all disbelief” (The National Enquirer ) and then there’s Tiger Beat.     There is a niche in the magazine market called “magazines for straight men who have not yet figured out they are not heterosexual.”   We would find Men’s Health and GQ in the “magazines for straight men who have not yet figured out they are not heterosexual” niche market.  We can also niche out the business magazine segment of business magazines.    There is a niche called “magazines for people who are trying to pick up a significant other on the plane by reading something of import” (The Economist, Harvard Business Review).  There is a niche in the business magazine market segment called “business magazines for those who support Rick Scott and the religious right” (The New Republic and Rolling Stone).    You doubt me on Rolling Stone, aren’t you?    I harbor a Mel Gibson-like conspiracy theory that The Man bought Rolling Stone several years back and The Man is using Rolling Stone as a vehicle to drive our youth ever closer to Jerry Falwell and his ilk.   How else would you explain Justin Bieber on the cover two months back?   No way would Jan Wenner’s original crew would have put Justin Bieber on the cover back in 1972, absent an accompanying article by Hunter S. Thompson where JB snarfs mushrooms and Jell-O shots at a Greyhound bus terminal en route to Youngstown, Ohio.

(Faulkner just rolled over in his grave, sat up, and started a standing ovation)

Dennis Rodman niche marketed himself as the best rebounder in the NBA.   Dennis did not shoot:  he went after the boards.   Pinochet niche marketed himself as one of the most ruthless dictators Latin America has even seen by taking people on one way helicopter rides out over the Atlantic.  Pinochet did not lead:  he killed.    Marsupials are a market segment of animals.   If we wanted to niche market an animal in the marsupial market segment, the best choice would be a wombat because most people think “kangaroo” when they think about marsupials.    Would venture to guess that the wombat niche has more runway for market share grabbing because wombats are far more unique.  The best way to market is to niche market.   When you niche market, find an unserved or underserved and bring a unique solution or product to that niche with differentiating features and benefits.   Wombats are unique.   Wombats.

Because of their unparalleled snack selection, Delta Airlines is my airline of choice.   Delta Airlines is in Terminal 2 at the San Diego Airport and the baggage claim area resides at the bottom of dual escalators, directly in the center of the terminal.   Each Friday evening, when I return from my Don Quixotesque like career adventure travels in these, our great United States, I see folks waiting for their loved ones at the base of these dual escalators.   Sometimes they hold signs.  Sometimes they hold snacks.   Quite intentionally, for two years I have chosen to not have anyone waiting for me at the base of those dual escalators in Terminal 2.   The truly single life is infinitely easier because when single it is virtually impossible to have the “you always” and “you never” conversations, be you the accuser or accusoree…..roles you should alternate on a regular M,W,F…T,Th,S alternating schedule.

I grow tired of snackless taxi rides home on Friday evening and have recently chosen to remediate the lack of someone at the bottom of those escalators.  As a student of the game and a fan of niche marketing, have recently chosen to niche market myself.  The key to successful niche marketing is carefully defining your niche.    The diagram below clearly illustrates my target niche:  the shaded portion in the middle.

In niche marketing me, the question I keep coming back to you, quite self absorbedly, is this.   How do you niche market a force of nature?   Many believe that Heath Ledger’s best role was his last:  The Joker in that Batman flick.   That is not Heath Ledger’s best role.   Heath Ledger’s best character was his Horatio Alger role in A Knights Tale and the character who stole the show in A Knight’s Tale was the Geoffrey Chaucer character, magnificently acted by Paul Bettany.    Paul Bettany later stole and married my dream date, Jennifer Connelly.  I would have been a better husband choice for Jennifer Connelly.   I digress.

Give unlimited resources and time, the best niche marketing offense for me would be to have Paul Bettany’s Chaucer character from A Knight’s Tale standing on that fence and being my own personal Johnny Olson.   The Chaucer character would say the following lines from A Knight’s Tale just like he read them in A Knight’s Tale, save for the name change from Sir Ullrich.   That would be some solid niche marketing.  Given unlimited time and resources, I would ask Stevie JC to serve as my Chaucer and he would roam San Diego County broadly proclaiming the following as we entered nightclubesque establishments:

“For you are all equally blessed. For I have the pride, the privilege, nay, the pleasure of introducing to you to a knight, sired by knights. A knight who can trace his lineage back beyond Charlemagne. I first met him atop a mountain near Jerusalem, praying to God, asking his forgiveness for the Saracen blood spilt by his sword. Next, he amazed me still further in Italy when he saved a fatherless beauty from the would-be ravishing of her dreadful Turkish uncle.”

 

“In Greece he spent a year in silence just to better understand the sound of a whisper. And so without further gilding the lily and with no more ado, I give to you, the seeker of serenity, the protector of Italian virginity, the enforcer of our Lord God, the one, the only, Sir Mulligan Von Cleveland!”

“Yes, behold my Lord Mulligan, the rock, the hard place, like a wind from Guilderland he sweeps by blown far from his homeland in search of glory and honor, we walk… in the garden… of his turbulence!”

Alas, my meager resources do not allow me to bring along a minstrel/announcer or roaming thespian on my travels.  Stevie JC bills out at $320.00 an hour because Idaho is worth it.    Some friends suggested using the internet to niche market myself a month ago and, after working through the typical objections (what if a prison woman dupes me into parting with my life savings, how do I politely say “no” to really, really unattractive woman while not internalizing too much that a really, really unattractive woman thought I might date her if she sent me a message, etc), I first joined www.fitnesssingles.com and then www.okcupid.com.   Both are solid niche marketing opportunities at opposite ends of the BMI spectrum:  the former at an average of 5 and the latter at an average of 70.

The shaded portion is the niche I seek on these two BMI polar opposite sites:

The remainder of this treatise is my profile on OK Cupid as of this evening.    Tell your ssingle friends, if they fit into that shaded portion illustrated above.   The photo below is the single photo on my profile, because nothing screams “mystery” like a boa and nothing screams “I warned you at the outset” like a full beer being raised to the lips on a random dating site.      If I could pay extra to have this White Zombie song come up each time someone looked at the profile, I would.   I’d pay even more to make sure the program automatically cranked up the speakers.   To eleven.

(BEGIN OK CUPID PROFILE)

Ethnicity

White(ish)

Height

6′ 0″ (1.83m).

Body Type

Athletic

Diet

Mostly anything

Smokes

No

Drinks

Socially

Religion

Other (Druid)

Sign

—Greater Than (trending towards infinity)

Education

Graduated from Masters program.   Twice.   Going to make it a hat trick here one day.

Job

Executive / Management

Income

Rather not say

Children

Doesn’t want children

Pets

Likes dogs and has cats

Speaks

English (Fluently), Spanish (Fluently), French (Poorly), C++ (Poorly), Mongolian (Poorly)

My self-summary

This is the only other dating site summary I have ever filled out (below)….was on a fitness site. Not compatible with anyone there though because I can only run when being chased by the police. Which apparently is not valued by people who run marathons. To save time, I simply cut and pasted it into here. This will allow me to use the time saved to cure cancer or eradicate Polio.

After years and years of serial monogamy, I took the last two years off to learn the guitar inside and out and perfect my cat herding skills. Just graduated to black belt in cat herding and learned how to fake a bar B and bar F….time to date again. Qualifiers on the interests listed. Although I listed French, I really suck at speaking French. Just began learning it last year. Would welcome a French speaker to tutor me. Same goes for boxing. Began it later in life and I am the worst boxer (skill wise) in all of San Diego Cty. I make up for the lack of boxing skills with sheer stupidity and false bravado in the ring.

I have an MBA and a Masters in Science in Information Technology, neither of which I use on a daily basis. In fact, I remain shocked that USD gave me the MSIT because, like boxing and French speaking, I was pretty awful at a lot of the IT things. Because I was pre-law in undergrad. This simply proves that I can read. Reading is one of my true passions. If you have lots and lots of great books to lend me, I’ll be exponentially more attracted. Just please don’t ask me IT questions. Because I will ruin your IT things if I touch them. If I just look at your iPod, it may break. Hide your IT things in a drawer when I visit

As you may have surmised, am also far too verbose. The things I write make Faulkner look like a cartoon strip. Despite this, actually have developed skills for BOTH ears and I know when to shut up. Am also a great direction follower and if you loudly say SHUT UP while smacking me alongside the head, I will most likely pipe down.

Am one of the least perfect individuals you may find on this site. If you are looking for marriage material, skip to the next guy. If you are looking to have a mercurial weekend filled with silliness and randomness (one where you go to work Monday and say what the h*ll just happened and why am I not in jail?, then we may be a good match.

This is my first foray into the online thing. Since you already figured that out, feel free to skip to the PS below. Thanks for looking. If you want to eat raw fish some time, let me know. I like raw fish because they often times will serve it with cold, unfiltered sake.

PS: sometimes I look like crap in the morning. Really ugly. If we stay the evening together and you look at me in the a.m. and shriek, just quietly sneak out and come back at noon. Once I primp and such, I look good again at noon. Just fair warning there.”

What I’m doing with my life

I foster abandoned kittens for a group called Friends of County Animal Shelter (FOCAS) so there’s generally a litter here getting socialized and such. If I had a big yard, would also foster puppies and such….no yard…no puppies. Love animals…were I brighter, would have been a vet. Started playing guitar 2 years ago and now have 6 guitars. Play them a lot. Poorly. Love to surf and be in the sun, so clearly I am cultivating cancer and advanced rotator cuff injuries.

I’m really good at

Blinking and playing easy songs on the guitar.   Groping fruits:  never vegetables

The first things people usually notice about me

…is that I have never been in the Olympic Games, nor have I ever been convicted of a felony.

The six things I could never do without

Books

Music

Laughter

Beer

A Pen

A Notepad

http://mindofmullybizhausshoppe.wordpress.com/

I spend a lot of time thinking about

How I can become best friends with Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela. That man is batshit crazy and there’s nothing more fun than hanging out with a batshit crazy socialist dictator. How cool would that be?

On a typical Friday night I am

Flying back to SD. I travel a lot for work.

 

The most private thing I’m willing to admit

If I drink tequila, the odds of me peeing in your bed are 73.7%. Do NOT allow me to drink tequila when we go have sushi. Unless you have plastic sheets, in which case, we’re not going to have that second date.

You should message me if

You can square Pi….OR….if you have won a Nobel Prize

(END OK CUPID PROFILE)

I am not going to date anyone I meet online because I have always adored Groucho Marx’s quote “I would not want to be a member of a club that would accept people like me as a member” and will most certainly be leery of anyone who wants to be my girlfriend based upon that profile.   Because that relationship would be as safe, secure and as logical as satin sheets on a waterbed.

Good night and thanks for joining this evening.

I remain yours very truly,

DCMIV

(The Jigsaw Man)

(Turning The World Around With a Skeleton Hand)

(The Nexus One)

(The Ripper Man)

(A Demolition Style America’s Freak)

(More Human Than Human)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good night, Bethany.

Benjamin Button Bon Voyage (juxtaposition)

Best Experienced With:    Blues Traveler;     Conquer Me

(Please right click on the link below to open the suggested background music to this evening’s celebration of the last group to make their way through Chez Mulligan foster kitten training, doing all the homework and passing all the tests.    With the least appreciated song ever set out there by John Popper and the rest of the thinner peeps from Blues Traveler)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAQhoxpPdKo

All six of the Ingalls foster kitten litter now have wonderful new, permanent houses.  I like to picture them bounding around their new homes, astounding their new owners/housemates by speaking French in complete sentences and helping the neighborhood children with their Calculus homework.  Am certain that at least one of the kittens will figure out the cure for cancer in the next few years so feel free to take up smoking again or roll around in asbestos whenever the urge compels you to roll around in insulation.   This group was a very special group.

We’ll celebrate the Ingalls litter’s time in The LJ in reverse order, listening to John Popper’s harmonica, with various phrases from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Other Jazz Age Stories.   That’s why we’re going to look at them in reverse age.     Because of the Benjamin Button thing.

Always start with the end in mind.           That’s a damn fine rule in business and in life.

The End & Goodbyes

“Benjamin, we’re meant to lose the people we love. How else would we know how important they are to us?” 

“Your life is defined by its opportunities… even the ones you miss”

 

 

 

“I want to remember us just as we are now.”

 

 

 

  

(Ceeeeeeeeeatie is the finest surrogate cat mom in the galaxy)

“You can be mad as a mad dog at the way things went; you can swear and curse the fates – but when it comes to the end, you have to let go.”

 

 

 

The Middle

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“It’s a funny thing about comin’ home. Looks the same, smells the same, feels the same. You’ll realize what’s changed is you.”

 

 

 

 

“Along the way you bump into people who make a dent on your life. Some people get struck by lightning. Some are born to sit by a river. Some have an ear for music. Some are artists. Some swim the English Channel. Some know buttons. Some know Shakespeare. Some are mothers. And some people can dance.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Beginning

 

 

 

 

 

 

“For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You stuck around and scrolled all the way to the bottom, eh?   Not much of that going on in today’s MTV, three minute span of attention, sound bite oriented, mile wide-inch deep world.   Bully for you!    Well done.    For your efforts, you get a quote from the finest book written in the past twenty years.   Not Fitzgerald because he died in 1940:  Rick Bragg…from The Prince of Frogtown.    That’s one hell of a book.   Go order it right now and read it straight through.   It will make you laugh and cry.   That’s the definition of “one hell of a book” and it also describes fostering.

 

“Don’t worry about what people think, because once it’s all over the people who love you will make you what they want you to be, and the people who don’t love you will, too.”   (Rick Bragg:  “The Prince of Frogtown”) 

 

 

God bless Friends of County Animal Shelters for saving hundreds of dogs and cats from the gas chamber each year.     Screw you morons who choose to not spay or neuter your pets and then dump them at the shelter in cardboard boxes.  Please spay or neuter your pets.   Always read the fine print.   Floss every day.   Never turn left across four lanes of traffic.    Never start a land war in Southeast Asia.    Treat others as you would like to be treated yourself.    Rinse.   Repeat.

Jean-Paul Sartre, e.a.Poe, & Aau Revoir Vous Chatons Stupides de Débile

 

 

 

Best Experienced With:          James Blunt;          Same Mistake

(Please right click on the link below to open the suggested background music to this evening’s celebration of foster animals, Mr. Poe, smart friends, great book lines, and French existentialists)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxYJnRVUJ6s&feature=related

The two best lines, or sequence of lines, in any books ever written in this universe or any other universes are:

“So long and thanks for all the fish!”  (So Long and Thanks for all the Fish:  Douglas Adams)

“Do you like my party hat?  Yes, I do, I do like your party hat.  Good bye.  Good bye, then.”   (Go Dog Go:  Dr. Seuss) 

That is neither here nor there.    Here’s the progression on the little morons who are now onto the next step of the Underground Railroad that is the Friends of County Animal Shelters (FOCAS).

Week One

Why did I name mom Eulalie?  Was a Poe poem name given by a close friend with a Jupiter sized brain.   If you surround yourself with friends with massive brains, you can freely steal their ideas and not give them credit.  Keep that in mind.   You are welcome.

Eulalie:  (Edgar Allen Poe)

 I dwelt alone
In a world of moan,
And my soul was a stagnant tide,
Till the fair and gentle Eulalie became my blushing bride-
Till the yellow-haired young Eulalie became my smiling bride.

Ah, less- less bright
The stars of the night
Than the eyes of the radiant girl!
That the vapor can make
With the moon-tints of purple and pearl,
Can vie with the modest Eulalie’s most unregarded curl-
Can compare with the bright-eyed Eulalie’s most humble and careless
curl.

Now Doubt- now Pain
Come never again,
For her soul gives me sigh for sigh,
And all day long
Shines, bright and strong,
Astarte within the sky,
While ever to her dear Eulalie upturns her matron eye-
While ever to her young Eulalie upturns her violet eye.

 

Week Somewhere in the Middle

Week Last

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day Last

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Life has no meaning the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal.”   (Jean Paul Satre.)   That book line does not suck either; however, it is not as fun to say as “good bye…good bye, then.”

Good bye, then.

 

Massive Amounts of Krill, Poetry, & A Tasty Shepherd’s Pie Recipe

 

 

 

 

Best Experienced With:           Hum;           Stars

(Please right click on the link below to open the suggested background music to this evening’s gathering in a new browser window.   That’s a tasty little song with a significantly cool opening riff.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rfbn3ieVUYU

 

 

The Random sent a big ole school of krill off the coast of So Cal this past week.   The krill attracted a whole passel of massive blue whales and their respective dolphin and sunfish posses.    My friend Eb was out stand up paddling off of Hermosa Beach this morning with his camera and took the photos you see below.

When you combine millions of krill, a tasty song by Hum, and fifty foot long blue whales, what do you get?    An easy recipe for Shepherd’s Pie and an old school poem by Sidd Finch, may God rest his soul.    That’s easy arithmetic, even for those of us born and raised in public schools in The Land of Cleve.    Shall we begin?

 

Dream Undertaker

 

I am an artist of the mind

With words as pastels and chalk

And thoughts of canvas

Never fully drying or framed.

I am a gardener of the soul

With feelings as trowels

And pain and joy as fertilizer

Always growing and dying.

I am a magician of the heart

With rage and lust as canaries

And love and hate as the hat

I hide them in.

I am an undertaker of dreams,

Neatly cleaning the dead,

And tucking them into their space

Until they bloom anew.

Sidd Finch  (1937-1985)

 

 

 

Shepherd’s Pie

Ingredients:

1 cup quick cooking oats
3/4 cup milk
1 Tablespoon crushed beef bouillon
1 egg
2 teaspoons parsley
1 Tablespoon onion flakes
1/4 teaspoon thyme
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 pound lean ground beef
1 cup diced, cooked carrots
4 cups hot mashed potatoes
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon onion powder
8 oz. shredded cheese

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Drink a Pilsner while waiting.

2. In a large bowl, mix together the oats, milk, egg and soup mix. Add the parsley, onion flakes, pepper, thyme, beef and carrots. Mix all this up while drinking a Pilsner beer.

3. Place this mixture into a pie plate and bake for 45 minutes.  Drink a Pilsner while waiting.

4. While the beef mixture is baking, mix the onion powder and 1/4 teaspoon of black pepper with the mashed potatoes.  Drink a Pilsner while waiting.

5. Remove the meat pie from the oven and drain the fat. Sprinkle the meat crust with 6 oz. of the cheese.

6. Spread the mashed potatoes on top, sprinkle remaining cheese on top of them.   If you have bacon bits, douse entire thing with seven or eight pounds of bacon bits.    Mmmmmmmmmmm!     Bacon!

7. Eat it while drinking a Pilsner beer.    When appropriate, share with blue whales and their posse.

 

“she’s not at work, she’s not at school,  she’s not in bed…I think I finally broke her”

“i thought she’d be there holding daisies.”

“she always waits for me”

“a crumpled yellow piece of paper.   seven nines and tens”

 

Happy Birthday Glove Man, Interviewing, & Immaculate Conceptions

Best Experienced With:     Lyle Lovett;        Private Conversation

(Please right click on the link below to open the suggested background music to this evening’s celebration on my father’s seventy-third birthday in a new browser window.  Thanks for joining.   Yes, there will be cake later on.  Yes, it is red velvet cake and yes, there is a tub of extra frosting….like there should always be at any birthday celebration) 

 

 

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_XFmc7JjS4

 

 

 

 

My father turned seventy-three last week.    In the 1950’s, his doctors told him he would be lucky to see forty.   This is my father’s belated birthday card.    I love you and, perhaps more important, I love who you led me to be as a man.

Right out of college you get the worst interview questions from the worst new managers.   Mostly because you are right out of college and that’s all you really deserve.   My interview questions these days are far more advanced than they were twenty years ago.   These days, I lead with “Steven William Hawking states ‘my goal is simple. It is complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.’”.  “Please analyse Mr. Hawking’s statement in relation to what you know about quantum physics, quarks, and Hostess snack cakes.”     Then I generally just sit there, gnawing a pen for fifteen minutes repressing a smile.

This, in comparison to the first interview question I asked a surgical sales candidate years ago.   I asked: “it says here you live in Indianapolis….do you like it there?”   That was the strongest interview question in the tool kit back then.    May have even followed it up with something like“I hear it’s pretty flat there around Indianapolis.”  I was a brilliant and talented interviewer in those first few years and it is a wonder anyone chose to come work on my teams.    Further proof that God takes care of fools and The Irish.

99.6% of the managers with whom I interviewed right out of college asked “Who are your heroes and why?”   Because most of these new mangers seemed dim and unsure of themselves, was often tempted to answer; “Felix the Cat, Casper the Friendly Ghost, and Idi Amin”; however I was desperate to actually land a career and amass the vast amount of wealth needed to buy Ireland back from those English bastards by 2043.

My real answer was always; “My father, because he is the strongest, smartest, and most determined man in the universe.”   Am certain that others may have answered the same, but mine was the only correct answer because I am an only son and my three sisters have never interviewed for the same jobs as me.

At one end of the freedom and discipline spectrum are the black hooded, trust fund funded, cowardly anarchists.   At the other end of the spectrum is my father.  His powers of perception are remarkable, his heart would dwarf Jupiter (even at close range), and his withering “angry stare” would make Genghis Khan quake and timidly look down at his shoes.   Kicking the dirt and nervously whistling.

Interviewing, especially the first round of interviews when you are under a time crunch, is like a Dante version of speed dating.   Sometimes I will see eight or nine candidates in one day, three days in a row, to find three candidates to bring to round two.  This is exactly like dating proportions, especially if your fickleness level is off the chart.  Since we all make our decisions in the first three minutes of meeting anyone, often the last fifty-seven minutes are not going to change the interview outcome.  When this happens, in dating and interviewing, I will often ask the following four questions because they are remarkably entertaining and massively time consuming.

1.  Please tell me everything that has happened in your life from second grade through this afternoon.   Do not leave out any details.  You have fifty-seven minutes.  Please begin.
2. Using this blank piece of paper and this purple crayon, please square Pi and show all your work.  Please begin.
3. Please explain the Marshall Plan in detail, including the goals, the execution of said goals, and the long term effect the Marshall Plan has had on the post war, civilized world.   Please begin.
4. Same as number three, but please say it and write it in Mandarin and Cantonese because we all need to know Chinese these days.   Rotten, commie bastards.  Please begin.

Last weekend, after I extolled the many virtues of choosing to not have a girlfriend for the last two years during a phone conversation, my father said the following without missing a beat.   “I’ve been dating the same girl for forty-six years and I love it.”   When my father and I speak, it is on speaker phone because he can no longer hold the phone.  Mom was in the room.   Mom giggled.

My father walked my older sister down the aisle at her wedding and he danced with my mother at the reception, standing on his own.   99% of the population can say the same thing and, normally, this not unique.   Fifty-one years ago today, on summer break from Michigan State in 1959,  my father was working at a meat packing plant in Muncie, Indiana.  Towards the end of the day, he got his neck stuck in a freight elevator.  As it closed.  The elevator gates crushed his C3 and C4 vertebrae and severely bruised his spinal cord.  Dad was paralyzed from the neck down for four full months.

His physicians in Indianapolis, Indiana told him he would never regain use of his arms and legs while he was on one of the first Stryker turning frames.  Most of my business life has been spent tethered to Stryker Corporation.  God is a funny entity.  Stryker Corporation saved my father’s life four years before he met my mother, introduced me to many of my closest friends, and bought my house.   God is a funny entity.

My father learned to walk again after seven months and spent the lion’s share of his adult life standing upright.  My father is a big man:  6’4” and 280.  The best descriptor of his gait from a disinterested third party would be “he shuffled” and that description would be spot on accurate.  And, most important, my father never appeared self conscious about his walking ability.  How can you be self conscious when a bunch of jackasses told you that you would never walk again, meet a wife, and have four children through Immaculate Conception?   Because my mother and father never did that dirty sex stuff that your mother and father did.

Immaculate Conception all the way.

My father was unable to walk all three of my sisters down the aisle and today, much like Charlie in Flowers for Algernon, he has reverted back to his physical condition from fall of 1959.  Unlike Charlie in Flowers for Algernon, my father gets wiser and stronger each day.  Physically, he is unable to lift ether arms past his shoulder and his hands quake when he eats.  Mentally, he has never been sharper and he loves being alive to see his children and grandchildren each day.  Although he hurts 24/7 and has lost most of the physical capabilities he fought so hard to regain decades ago, none of us close to him have ever heard a complaint.

Why?  Because my father is as strong as a thousand armies and as soft as the petal on a long stem rose.   You’d be hard pressed to meet another man like my father in this universe or any other universe.

My father taught me to maintain a laser focus on the critical things you want in this world.   While interviewing to get into surgical sales, I worked at Bennigan’s restaurant and went 0 for 53 in my first 53 interviews for a surgical sales position back in “the day”   Cannot pinpoint whether it was the “I work as a waiter at Bennigan’s” answer, the “yes, I am a twenty-five year old with less than thirteen minutes of surgical sales experience” answer or the “yes, I was terminated from Pfizer for calling Vietnamese hookers to the room next door to mine at the Pfizer corporate condos on night 28 of a 30 day Pfizer training program because God wanted me to drink beer and laugh like a hyena” answer.  Any three of those on their own are solid enough to not get you a job; their combined answer power is enough to get you tossed out of an interview.   Those were fun interviews.

My father hates liars, cheats and thieves.  Therefore, I answered the three questions above truthfully 53 times and had a poor batting average until interview number 54.   Which I nailed.  Because Berchtold Corporation was roughly as choosey as Paris Hilton with Greek tycoon heirs or the Cleveland Browns with first round draft choices.

One of the magnificent things both my parents did for the four of us as we grew into taller versions of ourselves was to allow us to be exactly whom we chose to be.  The best Kurt Vonnegut quote ever is; “I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over.  Out on the edges you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center.”   My father, with certain stoicism, allowed me to make each poor choice I have made thus far, although it’s clear he saw the train wrecks coming.  He understood my love of that Vonnegut quote and has always allowed me to live that quote, with minimum judgment.   That behavior takes a great deal of courage and loving restraint.

I love my father for allowing me to bloody my knees, seemingly each week for the past three thousand weeks and for not judging too harshly while the scabs were healing.  We learn best through pain and ought to hold mistakes as closely to our chests as we did mangled, old teddy bears when we were four years old.

Had I chosen to procreate, would have most likely bundled my children in three of four layers of bubble wrap and duct tape each time they left the house to play football or ride bikes.   Soccer would not have been an option for my mythical children.   They would have played football because you get to hit people.   Soccer is more like a four hour game of tag with a net at each end in the odd event someone actually kicks the ball into it accidentally.

Have never had that sweaty palm, unsure feeling before any interview and very seldom am I nervous before important meetings.  This is attributable to the evening I fell asleep at the wheel on the I-480, I 71 interchange driving home from a Michael Stanley Band concert in high school.  Woke up lying down across the front seat when the rear window of dad’s station wagon imploded from the seventy mile per hour collision with the guard rail.  Sat up while the car was about to drive off the cloverleaf and launch itself onto I-71 fifty feet below.   Pulled the station wagon back onto the road, avoiding the gas tank explosion fireworks show and certain ruination of my pretty, baby blues.

Fortunately, my sister Melinda was leaving for her freshman year at Bowling Green four hours later and the station wagon was in the on deck circle for the trip.   Me totaling the car on the way home from the Michael Stanley Band concert threw a bit of a wrench in Mel’s trip to Bowling Green.  Sorry, Mel.  I never, ever, ever took acid again.  Pinky swear.    And I still love me some Midwest Midnight.   Because Midwest Midnight  is the finest song in the Michael Stanley Band catalogue.

I once watched a man burn to death from twenty feet away after a car wreck on Interstate 75 in Ohio because I could not get to him as the gas tank exploded.  Had nightmares about that for three years.   I stood in my kitchen on Easter Sunday in 2006 and told my wife, quite truthfully, that while I loved her like I would never love anyone else; she had to be gone by the time I returned from a business trip to Zurich in fourteen days.  Easter will never be the same because of that fourteen minute conversation.    Both of these experiences paled in comparison to how it felt when my father looked up at me from the kitchen table at 4:30 a.m. that morning, after he looked out the window at the totaled station wagon

That 4:30 a.m. image is the one I have conjured up prior to interviews for the last few decades:  it is a look not easily forgotten.   Nothing in the business world or my personal life will ever be that challenging.  My only regret in not procreating is that I was never able to replicate that evening with my son or daughter or show that much love and understanding.  That is what you taught us, dad.  Thank you.

Happy seventy-third birthday, Glove Man.

You are one in three billion.

From this day forward, I am the only one permitted to reply “My father, because he is the strongest, smartest, and most determined man in the universe.”.   Qoud erat demonstrandum.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the moral of this story

It’s easier said than done

Look at what you’ve been through

And see what you’ve become

 

Twas On Lofty Vase’s Side…….The Doctor Doolittle Diaries.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Best Experienced With:        Counting Crows;           Round Here

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzXfkdCoy6U

 

 

 

I was not always a cat whisperer and Chez Mulligan was not always the furry rescue habitat it is today.  Have always been amused by people that comment dismissively; “oh, you are a cat person”.  Most of these folks do not ask questions such as “do you love all animals or just cats”?  All animals are welcome up here in The Attic.  We are listed in the most search engines as a cross between The Island of Misfit Toys and Marshall University’s 1972 football team.

In fact, due to travel and such, Chez Mully started out with an easy to maintain pet that only ate once a week or so.  A ten foot Burmese python.

Once she got aggressive, progressed to eating large warm blooded animals, and decided my arm looked tasty, the ten foot Burmese python moved on and three green iguanas moved in.  John, Godzilla, and Rodan were perfect pets.  They slept on the seldom used pilot lights on the stove from 5:00 p.m. until 9:00 a.m.   At 9:00 a.m. they moved outside to the deck where they worked on their tans, hummed show tunes, and snarfed down kale and blueberries with reckless abandon.

Dogs are out of the question when your career adventures take you away from the house more than two nights a week.  Given enough land and time (and no business travel), would opt for a few dozen Tibetan Mastiffs.  Compared to a cat, the only pet easier to care for are the fish you win at your school fair by throwing a ping pong ball into a goldfish bowl.  Goldfish bore most of us to tears after the first three minutes.

What do you want your obituary to say?  Mine?  Short and simple, unlike most of the MLOGs we pin to the bulletin board up here in The Attic.   Mine will say this:

 

Mully had the most remarkable and diverse collection of friends and acquaintances that he amassed through adventures over the years.  He laughed like a hyena as much as possible and never passed up the opportunity to hear a good story.  He loved beer and Hostess snack cakes, as well as the magic and mystery that are Razzles.  First they’re a candy and then they’re a gum.  Little round Razzles are so much fun.

 

Here is Sage’s obituary.

Sage Mulligan, 10, died at 3:00 a.m. on December 23, 2009 after a bravely fought, but far too short, battle with liver cancer.

 

As near as most can figure, Sage was born around May, 1999 in the vacant lot next to Chez Mulligan to an unknown male cat and an unknown female cat.  He was captured  at the age of seven weeks by Mully and Opes when they arrived home from Street Scene at the crack of dawn.  Deemed “unadoptable” due to a developmental issue, Sage chose to live out his natural life in Chez Mulligan with the rest of the pack.

 

 

 

Sage never had the opportunity (or need) to work, but had he chosen a career we are certain he would have given Ricky Bobby a run for his money on the Nascar circuit.  He never took a wife, instead choosing at twelve weeks to live the life of a eunuch-like monk, dispensing wisdom for those that sought him out.  Hence………..his name.

 

 

 

Sage was a member of the New Reformed Church of the Holy Feline and enjoyed bathing in sun rays, saying his own name aloud in a mimic form, and kitty treats.  No cat has ever loved kitty treats more than Sage.

 

 

 

His family wrote: “Sage loved rolling around in catnip and chasing fake mice with feather tails when he was younger. As he matured, he most loved walking upstairs to eat as much food as possible, then retiring to the big bed downstairs for an eighteen or nineteen hour nap . Sage always told a good story and was a gentle cat.  He will be missed greatly by his best friend Bruiser and the man that fed him the kitty treats.”

Sage is survived by his sisters and brothers Marsha, Jan, Cindy, Bruiser, Ceeeeeeeatie, and Deeeeeeeogie.  His silly antics, lack of balance, and propensity to fall to the right will be sorely missed by the guy that kept Sage fat over the years. 

In lieu of flower arrangements, please feel free to go adopt an “unadoptable” pet like Sage before they get euthanized by The Man.  The shelters are brimming with Sages and there is no such thing as unadoptable.

 

The Mind of Mully

 

Round here we’re never sent to bed early
And nobody makes us wait
Round here we stay up very, very very
Very late

 

Thanks for visiting us for a while, Sage.  You and Mr. Samuelson have a wonderful time up there postulating economic theories.  Please tell Jesus “happy birthday” from all of us at His birthday party on Friday.

The Attic now has six cats, because seven would be just plain weird.

Prior Art & “I’ll Be Your Emperor Penguin” Lyrics and Tab

This MLOG has two purposes.  First,. since we are not going to lay down tracks for my debut album I’ll Be Your Emperor Penguin until we have a great big cash advance from a major studio (and  helicopter), this MLOG will establish prior art for the title track below.  Thus, should Prince, Metallica, or The Hanson Brothers release a similar song, they will owe us millions.

We have now established a date, in a public venue, and clearly this is original.   That, my friends, sums up the concept of prior art!

James Hetfield eat your heart out.

I’ll Be Your Emperor Penguin

Chorus is  Dsus2, Gsus4, D (if you see fit)

Refrains are Gsus2, D, A7….repeat

___________________________________________

Gsus2

Unemployment hasn’t killed me,

Gsus2

But your thigh highs thrilled me

D

And your (expletive deleted) blew me straight through the wall.

Gsus2

The Ramen was easy

Gsus2

And your buttocks were squeezy

D

And now we’re in the middle of fall

A7

450 a week ain’t nothing to sneeze at.

Gsus2

Because it’s better than 449.

A7

And when we have movie night, for the three hundredth time,

Gsus2

I’ll still scream to the world that you’re mine.

Dsus2

I don’t want to be your lion, baby

Gsus4

Cause I ain’t got much of a roar.

Dsus2

And I don’t want to be your tomcat, honey

Gsus4

Cause people will call me a whore.

Dsus2

I can’t really be your cuddly bear

Gsus4

Cause I never want to share my honey.

Dsus2

But I’ll be your emperor penguin….

Gsus4                                                   Dsus2

….and you can bring home all of the money.

Your daddy looks for extraterrestrials

And picks fights with basketball refs

And if you promise not to recruit me,

For asta kalapa,

I’ll stay right here in the nest.

Don’t want squid or krill

Raw herring or crustaceans

Or anything smelly, my dear.

Just make me that pot roast

Give me three Foster’s Lagers

And I’ll hang right here with my beer

I don’t want to be your lion, honey

Cause I ain’t got much of a roar.

And I don’t want to be your tomcat, baby

Cause people will call me a whore.

I can’t really be your cuddly bear

Cause I never want to share my honey.

But I’ll be your emporer penguin….

….and you can bring home all of the money.

You can’t trust me with plumbing, electrical connections

Or folding the laundry the right way

But I’m a mean cat herder, a marmoset juggler
And I’ll kiss your stupid face all day

If you bring home the cash,

I’ll grab your neck in my beak

And we can have nekked Saturday

All week………….

I don’t want to be your lion, honey

Cause I ain’t got much of a roar.

And I don’t want to be your tomcat, baby

Cause people will call me a whore.

I can’t really be your cuddly bear

Cause I never want to share my honey.

But I’ll be your emperor penguin….

….and you can bring home all of the money.

(Editors Note:  I would, indeed, stay home in the nest should anyone care to make me think, feel and laugh like a hyena AND bring home all the money.  Am very self actualized that way.)

No One Wins a Price War

 

 

 

Best Experienced With:          Social Distortion;    Story of My Life

  

(please right click on the link to open up a new window with the suggested background music for this treatise)

 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuKOc_Mpumc

  

(Ed. Note:  This treatise appeared in Mind of Mully (Classic) last month as a sample.  We gussied it up a bit for you if you have already read it.  How was your day?  Great!  Thanks for stopping by again.)

 

  

No one wins a price war.  No one ever, ever, ever wins a price war.

  

Oops.  Was only looking at that from a market participant point of view.  The buyer always wins during a price war.  The buyer always, always, always wins a price war.  The sellers lose.  You cannot win an argument with me on this because math and science are on my side.  And God.  God is on my side because I am Irish Catholic and we are the chosen people.  Mostly though, I have math and science on my side. 

 

Was reminded of this last month when Microsoft lowered the price of their X-Box Elite by 25%, from $400 to $300.  Why?  Sony had just dropped the price of PlayStation 3 to $300.  Stupid. 

 

If you have sat through one of my classes, sat across from me at a desk, or chatted with me on the phone about business, you have heard me say “no one wins a price war”.  If you have called me and said “well, (insert name here) is less expensive than me and they are going to buy from them” then you know my reply is a two parter:

 

1. “Well, then you lose……go sell somewhere else and quit whining”
2. “Looks like you failed to qualify the customer properly OR you failed to show that there is value in you and your product.  Now quit whining and go sell somewhere else”

 

Regardless who you are or in what market you compete, someone will always be less expensive than you.  If you are the price leader right now, I promise you that within a year or two there will be a new entrant that is less expensive than you.  How do I know that no one ever wins a price war?  Is it just my opinion?  The opinion of a publicly educated kid from Cleveland?

 

Nope.  It is the precept of one of the best known and most studied Harvard Business Review case studies called “Phillip Morris:  Marlboro Friday”.  If you click the link at the bottom, you can invest $7.00 in your future and purchase the full case study.  It clearly shows that waging a price war loses money for everyone….the most expensive folks in the market space and the least expensive folks in the market space.  The only people that won were the smokers that are all going to get FREE healthcare even though they choose to poison themselves daily.  I wonder if I pay for their oxygen tanks and chemotherapy treatment, maybe the smokers will cook me dinner once a week.  That seems fair.

 
Have sat through meetings where others argued for market share at any price using General Electric’s 1960 PIMS rationale.  Profit Impact of Market Strategy (PIMS) was worshipped as god for many years and, rightly so, still holds some measure of truth.  GE had a great advanced dB that analyzed various marketing strategy on business performance.  PIMS showed that over a long event horizon, relative market share was the greatest predictor of profitability and the best indicator of where to invest new capital for the greatest ROI.

 

The very simple argument of “we need to grab market share” is nonsensical as a stand alone argument.  In any given market space, you have a pie cut up into various pieces of gross profit margin (GPM).  There will be a slice at 60-70% GPM, a piece at 50-60% GPM, a piece at 40-50% GPM.  Each of these slices is a different size, the the higher GPM slices being significantly smaller than the slices of lower GPM’s.   It is very, very difficult to change a market space.  You and I are not that powerful.   Really.   

 

 

Your price to the street is only one lever/input, the two other important ones being your manufactured cost and what unique differentiating features and benefits your product has.  More important than the latter there is whether or not your customers think those differentiating F&B’s are important to them.  Only then will they pay you more for those unique F&B’s.  That is why we are all about the questions here in The Attic!  Ask your customer on the front end if those differentiators are important to them and then ask if they will pay more for them.

 

 

Market share at any price is a Pyrrhic victory at best and is very dangerous to have as a sustainable strategy. 

 

 

Here’s where people began messing the market share grab thing up.  They believed that if they dropped the price to gobble up market share as rapidly as possible that the PIMS theory would hold.  It doesn’t.  Parts of it hold (e.g. economies of scale because if you have the highest market share you should be able to get the best pricing from your suppliers, etc), but not all.  Whenever you do multivariate analysis and regression analysis of sales, you’re going to screw the pooch by missing unobservables.  Within General Electric, the study was valid and many postulate this is because of what?  Guess.  Go ahead, guess.

 

Management and culture!  Cannot copy either of those, can you.  Strong source of competitive differentiation and sustainable advantage, that management and culture!

 

Every scientific study done on PIMS in the last twenty years has shown there is a diminishing marginal return as you increase market share.  Moreover, there is an optimal market share in each market space for each participant in that market.  There are times where it is more profitable to give up market share.  Really!

 

Throw a little Nashian gaming theory in there and you are going to lose a lot of money in a relatively short period of time.  You think the other folks in your market space are going to sit there and watch you gobble up market share?  Heck no.  They are going to come back at you and then the toilet starts flushing.  Never consider your pricing decisions in a vacuum.  Always consider what the other people in your market space are going to react.  They will react.

 

Competing on price is easy and the least bright of any monkeys can do it.  Choose to join me in not respecting those that primarily compete on price.  In fact, let’s call them wussies to their face.  How tough is that?  How challenging?  And how rewarding is it to that sales person when the customer calls and says “Great news!  We chose you because you cost less!”  I have not heard that in twenty three years and I’d be hard pressed to think of anyone on one of my sales teams that has ever heard it.

 

 

Price does not matter.  

 

 

 Do not start a price war.

  

 

No one wins a price war.

 

 

Click here to buy the Harvard Business Review case study mentioned above.  If you are in sales and marketing, you want to own this.  It’s $7.00.

 

http://harvardbusiness.org/product/philip-morris-marlboro-friday-a/an/596001-PDF-ENG

  

 

 

You still here?  Cool!  That means you are truly engaged and an apt pupil and my hat is off to you.  If you want to go deep on this, look up Jacobson and Aaker’s work from the mid 1980’s through now.  I stumbled across them a while back and they have some good stuff.

 

Another really good one is John Dickinson’s work at the University of Windsor.  He takes Jacobsen and Aaker and includes gaming theory.  I love me some gaming theory!  And Hostess snack cakes, too.  Man, but I love me some Hostess snack cakes!

 

Sharpies Are Fantastic Tools

So, You Want To Make $243,533? Prime Numbers!

 

  

 Best Experienced With:       Wreckless Eric;        Whole Wide World

  

(please right click on the link below to open the suggested background music for this treatise.  If you have a guitar near you, please play along!  Simply alternate between E maj and A maj.  See?  Simple and a fun song to play.  You are welcome!)

  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUFL8WSxTgY&feature=related

 

 

  

Since all business people should love numbers and embrace them as they embraced their teddy bear during their youth, here is your quota attainment and revenue generation by the prime numbers.  This little exercise uses hospitals as potential places to sell and assumes a sales force of fifty sales people.  

  

2,514,217:  Total amount you sell in 2009 by December 31 at midnight

  

243,553:     Your W2 statement says this is what you earned

 

 4513:          Number of hospitals in the United States (roughly)

  

631:            Number of times you must call potential customers on phone

 

 277 & 281: Cousin primes indicating 2009’s number of selling days (total)

 

 83:              Number of hospitals where you can sell each day

 

 61:              Business days left where you can be face to face with customers

 

 47:              Times each potential customer must say “no” before buying

 

 31:              Euclidian prime…number of potential deals you should have

 

 7:                Times you will have to re-propose during negotiations

 

 3:                Months to go in 2009

 

Since 1 is neither a prime nor a composite, we shall call 1…..you.  Go sell something.  The fourth quarter is always a magical and mystical quarter, provided you make the right choices each day.

  

Incidentally, a good sales person states that the list of prime numbers is infinite.  A great sales person ask the following question.  “How infinite is the list of prime numbers”? 

 

 

We are all about the questions………………………..

 

 

 

The Mind of Mully

 

When I was a young boy, my momma said to me…

There’s only one girl in the whole wide world for you

And she probably lives in Tahiti

I’ll cull the whole wide world just to find her

 

 

 PS:  If you want to see Will Ferrell’s best movie ever, rent “Stranger Than Fiction”.  It is a brilliantly written drama and he plays this song in the movie.  You are welcome!