| I am glad you are all still alive. (You are, aren't you?) |
[May. 23rd, 2012|11:58 pm] |
I had cause to recall, just the other day, a time in college when two friends and I almost became youthful entrepreneurs. My friend Van came to me with the idea of doing a calender of girls at our university. I thought "Hey, this could work!" and had the further thought of making it dueling calenders, one for independents and one for sororities, and we came up w/themes for the different months and what have you. Of course, for this to work, we needed a photographer. It just so happened that my other friend David was an awesome photographer, whose parents had a professional photography studio and who had been taking professional photos since he was in high school. I approached David, and we began discussing the nuts and bolts of this idea, and then we all 3 talked, and, well, this really COULD have worked. We could have raked in the bucks.
Alas, conflicts arose. The first and lesser conflict was that David (correctly) had the impression that Van, while he did want to make money, was more enamored with the idea of meeting lots of hot girls than anything else. David and I both somewhat worried that this could make the whole project look bad, should Van ask out anyone who thought (incorrectly, but tis easy to see how they might think this) that there was some kind of quid pro quo entanglement tween the asking and the calender. I was willing to risk it, as Van was truly a cool and nice and non-sleazy guy, and plus he wouldn't be meeting anyone w/out me and/or David there to clarify matters. So, we got past that. (If anyone was wondering whether David and I were purer of heart than Van, David was happily engaged and uninterested in anyone else, and I was totally interested but understood that this was not really the situation to be asking people out)
The second and greater conflict was over money and responsibilities. Van kinda wanted half the profits for having the idea, and for being sufficiently involved in the project as to meet all prospective calender girls and get to decide who would be in the calender, and make suggestions as to outfits and pictures, and meet girls and watch the photo sessions. In this worldview, he would do that, and David would handle all the photography and such for half of the other half, and I would handle all the distribution and marketing and budgeting and other remaining logistics for the other half of the other half. You can see where David and I were not particularly happy with this. So it was brought up that maybe we should split the profits equally between us for the aforementioned delegation of labor. And we got past THAT, but then the "putting money into it" came up. David didn't think he should bear any costs beyond the use of his labor and equipment and studio, which Van and I both agreed was entirely fair and just. But Van didn't think he should bear any costs since it was all his idea yet he wasn't getting any more of the profits than David or I. That ALL of the upfront costs and risks be born by me was not only somewhat irritating, but beyond what I could afford, and if I could have afforded it, I would have wanted a profit increase. David and I were irritated with Van. Van was irritated with David and I. And thus did much planning come to naught.
Fastforward to 1990. Say what you want about Van and I being erratic, nonconformist, underachieving malcontents, David was a nice straight arrow, all round solid citizen. Engaged in college, married immediately afterword, dressed conservatively, never even tried marijuana, steadily employed and making good money in his photography studio, had applied himself in college even though he hadn't really needed to go, etc. Then one fine weekday morning, a drunk driver enters the free way on the exit ramp at high speed, and there's a head on collision, and the next day I get tearful call in LA from David's wife back in Alabama that he's dead. He did everything right, had a solid future set, and boom. All gone.
Fastforward to 2001. Over the intervening years, Van, the only one of my high school and college friends I have kept in touch with on a semi-regular basis, has been an English teacher in Taiwan, the drummer in several jazz and rock and roll bands. and lived a really interesting life during which he never quite managed to hold down a regular job. A very talented, very smart, very capable person with a good heart, showing up on time on a regular basis simply wasn't his strong point. (Not that it was mine, either. The difference between me graduating college and him not was that after a semester of missing practically all -in some cases actually ALL - of our morning classes, I would always show up for the reviews and turn in the papers and ace the exams. He would only manage these latter things on occasion. And those classes in the later afternoon and at night, I was actually there for on a regular basis.) He did have quite spectacular success in picking up hot girls, tho, even without the calender. I suppose the whole long hair (waist length, most of the time) alternative rocker thing didn't hurt. Then, one spring Alabama evening, he went to sleep and never woke up. The official cause of death was heart failure. I have no idea if this was due to an underlying heart problem, or intentional or accidental overdose of some sort. He had been quite depressed over the 2000 election results and Bush's inauguration and the level of support for said ex-President in Alabama. So, I dunno.
And then there was one. I will just point out that there was an 11 year gap 'tween David and Van, and this year will make another 11 (which isn't what brought it to mind, but I couldn't help noticing dates). Hopefully I won't complete the trend. |
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1){kind=small}
mojave_wolf's journal
silly