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badass-at-fandoming · 3 years

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My Favorite Betrayal: Sevastian of the Winter

As one of the starter love interests for Lovestruck's popular Reigning Passions series, Sevastian of the Winter is a tumblr favorite. When I finally got around to reading his route, I enjoyed the stunning art and intricate writing--but this one moment really knocked me off my feet. I gotta post about it. Major spoilers ahoy.

One of the major themes in Sevastian's route is betrayal (which works so well in conversation with the theme of duty in Amara's route. The two routes are truly two sides of the same coin. But that's another post). From the plot to the art, betrayal, and its consequences, are everywhere. The decapitated statue in the Winter Quarter. Sevastian's nickname as "The Betrayer Prince." Heck, the Mark of the Betrayer Sevastian receives is mirrored on MC's sword-esque wedding dress.

[[Image ID 1, Sevastian pulls back his shirt to reveal a gleaming blue sword tattoo. The text reads, "Lines of twisting flame trace the shape of a stylized sword."]]

[[Image ID 2, MC and Sevastian stand side-by-side in their wedding clothes. MC's white dress has an incredibly deep and narrow neckline, with silver chain keeping it in the shape of sword. MC says, "Today marks the beginning of our life together."]]

As the plot goes on, Sevastian betrays, or contemplates betraying, various people and causes. Under the Silver Dagger persona, Sevastian betrays the other nobles by stealing their wealth. He betrays Lyris' trust and friendship by not talking to him after the wing debacle. He thinks about betraying his morals by murdering his father. You get the picture.

But there's one that stood out to me by a mile. It's this scene in s5:

[[Image ID 3, With weeping willows and fireflies behind them, Sevastian and MC stand distressed. MC has hold of Sevastian's forearm, while he leans slightly away from her. They both have anguished expressions on their faces]]

Let's re-orient. MC figures out she's the lost heir to Altadellys' throne. Lord Ubel, Sevastian's father, is salty about it, and MC and Sevastian flee his wrath and the capitol city. They hook up with the rebels, who oppose Ubel because he's an uber-rich dillweed. Led by General Nisse, the rebels task MC and Sevastian to convince the neighboring nation of Rovdyr to send troops and supplies. Our duo is on their way, but an ally betrays them. The situation devolves into a fight. A poisoned blade stabs Sevastian. Only MC's great-grandmother Edera pulling Sevastian into the hidden land of Fortrylle saves him. In this land infused with magical energy, time "stops" for Sevastian, and there's time to find the antidote for his ailment. Which is great, except the rebel cause is pressed for time. They need those Rovdyr allies. As illustrated in the above CG, Sevastian has the brilliant plan of leaving Fortrylle, letting himself die, and thereby forcing MC to get on with her royal future.

And I saw red.

My reaction was as searing as it was visceral. As a queer person, it's a very special experience to feel seen and represented in a work, but this was the first time I felt seen and absolutely hated it. This time, Sevastian was betraying MC and all they had fought for to be together. By throwing away his life, he was throwing all the choices MC had made to be with him right back in her face.

Part of the strength of my reaction stemmed from the fact that I had the 1980s AIDS epidemic on the brain. I'd recently watched Netflix's Circus of Books documentary. In it, a monogamous cishet couple recalled the epidemic and how it affected their lives and bookstore, which was a gay hot spot. Overnight, it seemed, their employees and customers started dying. They added hospital runs to their weekly errands. They called homophobic parents to inform them of their son's death.

And here, in the distorted mirror of fiction, was another queer man dying. No, not dying, but killing himself, so his partner "didn't have to suffer." So they "wouldn't be held back." So she could "move on" with her life and her queenly destiny. I'd heard those reasons before. I spiraled into the hundreds of stories of queer people killing themselves so their straight-passing partner could integrate into the heteronormative; into what others wanted them to be. The parallels drove me mad. Like these other deaths, his suicide felt so needless. Sevastian went on and on about how the rebels needed their queen, their rallying point.

The real kicker is: they don't. Like, no gamer wants to hear that their character is unnecessary to the story, but it's true in this case. MC and Sevastian don't bring anything particularly special to the rebel cause. They don't know military strategy or secret supply routes or a hitherto unknown access point to Altadellys. We learn later that Captain Amara and Queen Safir are around. With Amara's long history of service and Safir being the literal lost queen, they lend an equal, if not greater, sense of legitimacy to the revolt, and are excellent rallying points. Even securing Rovdyr forces don't require MC: General Nisse makes a war treaty with them on her own in Amara's route. The most MC and Sevastian contribute is Ubel's stolen funds. But once those are handed over, they're superfluous.

Just to nail this point home, MC has repeatedly said she doesn't have any particular inclination to be queen. It's more that the other options are terrible. Any destiny to be queen, any ultimate desire to wear the crown, is all in Sevastian's head. He's ignoring what she most wants, which is him, alive and by her side and loving her. I wanted to throttle him. In the midst of sickness and death, they had a chance to live in peace.

So, my God, was I impressed by this writing. For the low, low price of $0, I was absolutely knocked on my ass. Shit's GOOD, bro. I had to gush about it. Thank goodness the next scene gave us an affirming cuddle as a breather.

[[Image ID 4, MC and Sevastian stand close together in a grove of weeping willows. MC's eyes are closed. The text reads, "I lean into his chest as he curls his arms around me, half wishing I could crawl under his shirt and hide there."]]

This post is mega-long and has not real point besides LOOK AT THIS PRETTY, but ya know. Binge read Reigning Passions and you'll see what I mean. Thanks for reading!

#lovestruck #reigning passions #sevastian of the winter #homophobia #suicide #sickness #death #injury #well this got dark fast lol #circus of books #text post #everything's fine

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avanneman · 7 years

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Call My Agent!—They’ll always have Paris, because they f*cking live there

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Searching for six hours—well, more like 315 minutes—of Trump-free consciousness? Then, if you haven’t already, sign up for Netflix and check out Dix Pour Cent, aka 10 Percent, aka Call My Agent! (which is what Netflix calls it), a catch as catch can tale of agents, actors, directors, wives, mistresses, boyfriends, sons, daughters, and other hangers on in the City of Light, all revolving around that most important, or at least most self-important, of all worlds, le cinéma.

I wish I could write an intelligent review of Call My Agent!, but, well, I can’t. Usually when I write my reviews I cheat a little (or a lot) by relying on Wikipedia or somebody so I can identify all the characters, and the actors who play them, and not make any glaring errors in my plot summaries, etc., but in this case I can’t because, sadly, Call My Agent! doesn’t seem to be that much of a thing—only one season (of two) is available in the U.S.—so I’m pretty much a trail-blazer here and I won’t be providing much more than a once over easy on this one. I’m particularly at a loss because the series features numerous cameos from famous French film folk, about whom I unfortunately know nothing.

We begin with a crisis, of course. In la vie de Bohème life without a crisis is no life at all, but rather death. Agent Gabriel Sarda (Grégory Montel) is struggling with a tempestuous diva, Cécile, who is struggling to learn how to ride a horse, which she had earlier, and falsely, claimed she knew how to do. But her burden is small compared to Gabriel’s, because he’s learned that the deal of a lifetime—of several, in fact—a trilogy with Quentin Tarantino—oui, that Quentin Tarantino!—has fallen through because Quentin thinks Cécile’s too old. Too old! Jesus! Why not just kill her? It would be so much more humane!

But for the moment there’s a more immediate crisis, one that, fortunately, is a lot more manageable. Cécile isn’t supposed to be out riding a horse. She’s supposed to be in Paris for some sort of photo shoot at some impossibly stunning salon that, unless you’re Louis Quatorze, you can’t possibly afford. Gabriel brings her in, still reeking of the stable, but, never mind, Cécile may not be able to ride a thoroughbred, but she is one. A quick wardrobe change and she makes the room look shabby. Mission accomplished! Well, the easy part.

Gabriel knows all too well that discretion is the better part of valor, by far, so he leaves the bad news for later. He has to get back to the agency, ASK, aka Samuel Kerr Agency, because Samuel Kerr, the founding father and beloved papa, is going on vacation, for the first time in his life! Gabriel makes it back just in time, giving us a glimpse of the rest of the cast, including Papa Samuel (Alain Rimoux), the Yves Montand-ish Mathias Barneville (Thibault de Montalembert), a cute gay guy, a couple of seen it all French broads (okay, they’re all French, but these are like French French—old French), and Andréa Martel (Camille Cottin), who, it will emerge, is a bit of a diva on her own.

While the farewell party is going on, a sweet jeune fille wanders in. “Just give me your resume,” Sofia, the stunning biracial receptionist (Stéfi Celma), tells her briskly (in French, of course). “We’ll get back to you.” But shy Camille (Fanny Sidney) isn’t an actress. She just wants to see M. Barneville, and, no, she doesn’t have an appointment. “He’s very busy,” Sofia tells her. But when summoned Mathias appears with surprising quickness. Do we have a plot? I think we do!

Mathias is not at all happy to see Camille, suggesting that she is either his mistress or his bastard, and his nervous line of questioning strongly suggests the latter. Camille is newly arrived in Paris, from that region of France that is, basically, not Paris. She clearly likes the place and isn’t planning on leaving, even though she has not a euro, and even though Mathias clearly isn’t planning on giving her one.

While Mathias is struggling to get rid of his bastard daughter, Andréa is getting all boss from Hell on her helpless assistant, who can’t keep track of all the people she’s lying to on Andréa’s behalf, or even remember which lies she told whom. Plus, there’s Andréa’s love life. She’s into chicks, but there’s a lot of turnover, and it’s hard to remember who she’s avoiding and who she’s screwing, in part because Andréa can’t always remember herself. The assistant, acting out every assistant’s dreams, tells Andréa to take a taxi to enfer. She storms out of Andréa’s office, out into the reception area, where waif Camille is still wandering about in confusion.

“All right then, go to Hell!” shouts Andréa (more or less). “You! Are you looking for a job?”

The answer to that question is not no, and so off we go into the wonderful world of dix pour cent. “We have no lives,” Andréa explains. Their clients are their lives. They live in shitty apartments, they have no money, no husbands, no children, no nothing! But what do they have? They have art! They are the unseen, unheralded, yet all-important grease without whom the adamantine wheels of artistic ego would shatter one another to pieces and bring the sacred world of cinema to a splintering halt.

Yes, the life of an agent is always Hell, but it’s about to get a lot tougher for the folks at ASK, because scarcely has Papa Sam reached his vacation destination—the sunny beaches of Brazil—than the word comes back that he’s dead! Dead? How is this even possible, demands Mathias from the officious official informing them of Samuel’s decease. “He ate a wasp,” the official explains—that being, apparently, the sort of answer you get from the French government when something bad happens.1

Sam’s death is a particular stunner because he was, clearly, the only grown-up at the agency. Gabriel, Mathias, Andréa, and all the rest blink like kittens suddenly exposed to sunlight. We have to pay our bills now? And our taxes? But Sam always took care of that!

ASK’s problems continue to mount. Sam owned a controlling share of the agency, and he died intestate, so all his shares pass to his widow, Hélène (Gabrielle Forest). She’s a grand old femme, to be sure, but how do we know that the grand old femme won’t sell us all out and retire to the Riviera? Blood is in the water and the sharks are circling. And what about our clients? Those artists don’t give a damn about anyone or anything but themselves!

The uncertainty puts a double strain on the standard uncertainty of the dix pour cent business—the constant caressing, cajoling, and hand-holding of friend and foe alike, deceiving your friends and servicing your foes, running madly to stay in place on a frenzied carousel. But—and here is the kicker—somehow it all works. The lies that seem to lead to disaster lead instead to art! The two deadly enemies you booked for the same film, for the director they both loathe? “I can use that energy,” the director gloats, rubbing his hands together in glee. That impossible director who brings in everything over budget and overdue? His reworking of the memoirs of the duc de Saint-Simon is a smash!2

Yes, the madeleines here are a bit too sweet, too candy-coated—too many grand receptions, shoots, and gatherings in impossibly elegant surroundings, too many pretty girls waiting on “you” hand and foot, so much 18th-century privilege handed out to our 21st-century strivers/survivors.3 Even Andréa’s apartment, which was supposed to be a mess, is a little gem. People in Paris have killed for less—for far less—I’m sure.

As the first season ends, the gang at ASK, having survived everything, even a government audit, gather to drink Sam’s private stock of whiskey to celebrate a coup that’s going to assure that the agency will remain independent. Alas, the coup doesn’t quite come off, but so what? They aren’t dead yet, and there’s nothing wrong with getting drunk on the boss’s whiskey. Besides, as one of the old broads puts it, “Whenever I get depressed I go to a movie and that cheers me up.”

Okay, way too on the nose, but I enjoyed myself without the boss’s whiskey. Hey, Nextflix! Season deux! Now!

Afterwords Dix Pour Cent, directed by “César winning” director Cédric Klapisch, gives an unconscious representation of the “Paris Provincial” world consciously presented in Julie Delpy’s Two Days in Paris4—an incestuous assembly of self-indulgent enablers whose feckless life is made possible both by the extraordinary artistic treasures of Paris and massive government subsidies (largely funded, in turn, by taxes on Hollywood films), in the illusion that they are adding to those treasures.5 It’s also reminiscent of Hollywood films like Woody Allen’s Café Society and Martin Scorcese’s The Aviator, which simultaneously “expose” and sentimentalize Tinsel Town.

Sam’s cause of death is grounds for a funny running gag as the cast must repeatedly explain to grieving friends from other agencies that, no, Sam did not die in an orgy. But why else would one go to Brazil? A wasp? Are you sure? ↩︎

Many of the “impossible” people here are celebrities playing themselves, which would be a lot funnier if I knew who they were. ↩︎

Le meilleur century for the French was really the 17th—in the 18th they got their asses kicked by the British too often—but the 18th looks more comfortable. ↩︎

Delpy starred in the film, wrote, directed, produced, and edited the film, and also composed the score. Charlie Chaplin, eat your heart out! (Actually, Chaplin matched Delpy, although he sometimes had help with the script and he always had help—a lot of help—with the music.) ↩︎

There is, unsurprisingly, not a hijab in sight, and the few blacks we see are seamlessly integrated into French society. Hey, this show is about escaping your problems, not solving them. ↩︎

#Call My Agent!#dix pour cent #TV

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bharatiyamedia-blog · 5 years

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X-Males: Darkish Phoenix Film Overview: Wolverine, Deadpool

http://tinyurl.com/y55q7exg X-Males: Darkish Phoenix Film Overview Ranking: 2/5 Stars (Two stars) Star Forged: Sophie Turner, Jennifer Lawrence, James McAvoyJames McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Sophie Turner, Nicholas Hoult Director: Simon Kinberg X-Males: Darkish Phoenix Film Overview: Wolverine, Deadpool – Look What They Have Finished With out You! What’s Good: The ultimate battle & the truth that it’s ending! What’s Dangerous: This collection wanted a greater farewell – please carry again Wolverine & let’s group him up with Deadpool for one final time Lavatory Break: Skip it if you wish to hold the love for the collection intact Watch or Not?: Skip it for the love of classic X-Males! Person Ranking: TextThe story begins with very younger Jean Gray (performed by Summer time Fontana) using in a automotive together with her mother and father. She’s denied listening to the music of her selection, as an alternative, she items her mother and father a car-crash in returns. Mother and father die, she survives as a result of she’s particular – a mutant. Now, after protecting 60s in X-Males: The First Class (2011), 70s in X-Males: Days Of The Future Previous (2014) and 80s in X-Males: Apocalypse (2016), we lastly calm down within the 90s on this movie. Dr Xavier (McAvoy) finds Jean and takes her as his prodigy by explaining to her how she’s particular. We’ve seen all previously X-Males instalments, what was left now? Area! The X-Males are referred to as out to assist some Nasa Challenger astronauts caught within the house. In an try to avoid wasting them, Jean Gray sucks in some evil pressure formed in scorching flames (not hotter than Mumbai’s summer time although). She survives however turns into the Darkish Phoenix. With nice energy comes individuals who wish to steal it. Enters Vuk (Jessica Chastain), she tries to seduce the facility from Jean however she has the household of X-Males standing together with her. So, no factors for guessing it’s an excellent vs evil showdown within the finale, and we Indians have discovered since Mahabharata – the victory of excellent over evil. X-Males: Darkish Phoenix Film Overview X-Males: Darkish Phoenix Film Overview: Script Evaluation Simon Kinberg is type of a senior within the X-Males universe after writing three of its older components. This time issues don’t look very properly with the script. Minutes flip to years whereas Simon takes his time to construct the plot up. The second half will get attention-grabbing however by then, you’re both loud night breathing or doing one thing higher than watching on the display. The issue lies within the story, which by no means focuses on one specific factor. This was alleged to be the final X-Males movie, folks ought to’ve been mourning its finish however many had been relieved that it ended. Logan was sorely missed – most likely the one character which might be remembered as one of many X-Males. He stepped into the improper universe. Sophie’s monitor is so just like Captain Marvel; the narration feels an affordable knock-off of it. X-Males: Darkish Phoenix Film Overview: Star Efficiency TextJames McAvoy because the younger and vibrant Charles Xavier is uninteresting. He will get his justifiable share of display house however sadly couldn’t justify the identical. Michael Fassbender tops the who’s-your-favourite listing from the film; really, he’s the one one on that listing. Sophie Turner performs the titular function has no actual fight sequences. She simply stands at a spot utilizing her fingers to showcase some unhealthy CGI. I do know mutants are restricted to the powers they’ve acquired, however until after we’ll see them repeating the same issues again and again? (Oh! This was the final half). Jennifer Lawrence is respectable and is there only for a particular look. From the remainder of the lot, Nicholas Hoult because the beast is all proper. X-Males: Darkish Phoenix Film Overview: Route, Music TextSimon Kinberg’s ultimate bye just isn’t so good! The path is scattered as Simon fails to take care of the intrigue from the phrase go. There are a few good sequences particularly the ultimate battle, but it surely’s exhausting in any other case. This wanted Bryan Singer! Until this very second, I wasn’t conscious the music is given by the legendary Hans Zimmer. Not a single piece blended properly with the narrative. Music is much more forgettable than the opposite minuses of the movie. X-Males: Darkish Phoenix Film Overview: The Final Phrase All mentioned and performed, let’s bid our ultimate goodbyes to the X-Males collection as a result of it anyway outlived itself. This was memorable due to Hugh Jackman and the preliminary components. The final couple of components, together with this, had been simply extreme clutters. It ought to’ve ended with Days Of Future Previous & Logan. Two Stars! X-Males: Darkish Phoenix Trailer X-Males: Darkish Phoenix releases on fifth June, 2019. Share with us your expertise of watching X-Males: Darkish Phoenix. Android & IOS customers, obtain our cell app for sooner than ever Bollywood & Field Workplace updates! (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.8&appId=379203805755441"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); Source link

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jessestoddard · 7 years

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Welcome to Chapter 12 of my blog-to-book project: Life After High School: Secrets To A Successful Life By Those Who Have Had Twenty Years To Think About It (or) What They Didn’t Teach Us Gen Xers In High School. This chapter is called Stupid Tax. If you missed the last post, click here, otherwise, you can start at the beginning here.

It was cool while it lasted

Before I left Pure Fitness I got caught up in the amazing returns people were getting on real estate during the false boom of 2005. I invested in a plot of land in a new development in Northport, Florida, and had my aunt checking on it in my stead. I thought I knew about real estate, as I had carefully purchased a condo in Belltown while working at University Fitness. The price on that had nearly doubled, so I thought I could handle a little long distance investing.

I had a house built on the land and was ready to sell. I would have profited around $50,000 when it sold. My aunt was interested in living there, so I made the very unfortunate decision to hold on to it and rent it to her. She lost her job and then the economy tanked in 2007. It was all over the news that this particular area in Florida was not only dropping rapidly, it was one of the worst places in the entire country. Only some areas in Nevada and California had bigger drops in value. I went down to Florida and realized that every two out of three houses in the area were in foreclosure. Every single house had a for sale sign.

I gritted my teeth, found a tenant, who ironically was a foreclosure attorney (and later took advantage of his knowledge of the system to avoid paying rent), and tried to ride it out suffering through the loss. I bought the house at around $200,000 (all leveraged with a stupid low-down payment ARM), it was going to sell a little over $260,000, and since I didn’t sell, it was now worth $57,000 and I had a ton of debt that would eventually adjust to higher interest and kill me financially.

Also in 2005, being married and trying to settle down to give my wife some much-needed security, I decided it was the perfect time for me to become a high-risk entrepreneur.

It was an idea I had always believed I was destined for, even though my career had centered on the arts. In my mind, there is a strange parallel between the arts and entrepreneurship that most people miss. There is a creative genius that both require, but not everyone taps into.

I felt I had what it took, and since I had been kicking the idea around for around seven years, I dedicated focused time on carefully planning a new strategy to own my own gym. It was, after all, something I knew a lot about as an employee and independent contractor, and it seemed to go with my fascination with the physical.

Owning a gym is the perfect business for someone who wants to get in horrendous shape and go broke. Pushing pencils do wonders for the waistline, and any business that has huge fixed costs at the peak of the bubble with fickle customers paying $29 per month or less, is bound to have money slipping through your hands like a bucket shot full of holes by a 12-gauge shotgun.

I went back to my old boss, Rick Clark, and I appealed to his desire to expand his health club into new territory. I knew from years of conversations that he wanted more.

Actually, all Rick ever wanted to do was go golfing. He didn’t want to be there, but it had been a good gig and I saw that as an opportunity to be of service while helping myself make my own way simultaneously. I saw the debacle at the 5th Avenue Theater as a sign it was time to move on with my life and become a high roller.

I would say I wanted to be like Donald Trump since I had read his book among many other business books at the time before anyone knew who he was. Of course, this was long before anyone dreamed that he might become president. I just respected some of his real estate accomplishments, and the stories were inspiring to show how America still has opportunities. That was it. He was barely getting into reality TV, and people only knew him as a shrewd and rather wise business man.

Be honest, before the presidential election, did you even know anything about him other than he was a business celebrity on TV? Did you read books about him or by him? Well, I did, which might just give me a slightly different perspective than the average Joe. So just relax for a minute before you go nuts on me and throw Molotov Cocktails at my front door.

At that time, if you said “Trump for president,” you would be probably looked on as a radical intellectual with interesting views of the world and a unique viewpoint that others would wonder at.

Of course, at the time of this writing, if I were to say anything remotely positive about him, I am afraid a lynch mob would be waiting outside my house ready to take me out for devil worship. Living in Washington State has such a rich and tolerant culture! So I will NOT say anything either for or against. I leave that to Facebook, the source of all of our news and opinions. Facebook will tell us how to think. Oh great Facebook, only you know the truth. Please enlighten us with your out-of-context video clips and serial rants. Show us the way.

OK, worship time is over. Back to the story…

While I was still working at the 5th Ave, I met a guy named Mark who worked with Gary at WAMU Capital Corporation. He was a finance guy of sorts, but his dream was just to brew beer. He was at some of our poker parties at Gary’s. For some reason, I called him up at the bank and said: “You still want to get out of there?” He was ecstatic. We decided to open a gym.

I mean, of course, a gym made perfect sense, right?

We drove all over for months looking for spaces and writing business plans and then playing Halo on the X-Box to blow off steam. Eventually, a commercial broker introduced us to a space in Mountlake Terrace. It was 6,400 square feet next to a QFC and seemed to be prime retail. Mark and I gathered other partners (Mark’s friend Nathan, and my friends Gary and Luke) to raise cash, and then Rick provided the credit and his reputation. We called our new venture Retrofit, using a Seattle firm to create the branding elements.

At that time, my wife and I moved into the Snohomish house she grew up in, leaving Seattle behind in favor of rural commuting to the gym every day instead. She still worked at the UW, helping run a lab, and then came home to help me at the gym. She was and is an amazing woman, who stuck by me through some very bleak times. We are stronger for it.

The house was nearly condemned and in sore need of a major overhaul. My mom and dad came and stayed in hotels while helping remodel our house while Mae and I worked. I would come home after a very long day at the gym and crawl under the house to help with plumbing. We rebuilt the entire house from the inside out and ended up having to take a second mortgage to do it. We knew that everything would be fine since even though we had a lot of debt, real estate would most certainly keep going up and we would be making tons of money on our gyms after we opened three to five of them in the next couple of years as was our plan. We had run the numbers and were determined we would become wealthy.

This was a very tough time in my life that I am going to skirt over very quickly so as not to make myself rant excessively. We bought in at the top of the market on everything. We even went to the big IHRSA convention in Los Vegas to buy equipment. We did our research and studied our demographics and we were sure we could do it.

I signed up 635 new clients (setting a few records), in the worst time of the year to open a gym (summer), as fast as I could and things looked pretty good, but behind the scenes, we were falling apart. Let’s just say none of us could get along and there was some power plays that drove us further apart. The stock was internally devalued and somehow through some very tricky legal handiwork, I no longer had any control or value in the company and my equity had been reduced to nothing. I learned a huge lesson that day and for many days after that.

Luckily, while I was there, a guy named Wayne came in and had me try AdvoCare. I was very skeptical, but the stuff worked. In three weeks, without changing diet or exercise, the products helped me lose two notches on my belt, gain a pound of muscle, and feel more energy than I did in high school, and that was exactly what I needed at the time. Later, Mae would use the products to go from a size 12 to a 6 after kids and looks and feels amazing. We have maintained those results for over eleven years and love every aspect of the company and products. The customers were starting to love it too, but we didn’t have much time in the gym left to introduce it there.

Shortly after, the locks were changed and I was ousted of my own creation.

I was crushed and the company was in trouble. I could no longer sell memberships to keep it going and yet I still had all of the responsibilities and debts. The gym cost us $500,000 worth of equipment, and it was $13,000 a month in rent, not including the equipment leases.

The gym kept puttering along for a few years, and finally, they declared bankruptcy. Rick Clark lost his other gym and his house and retirement and moved to Arizona to get a job and start over in his sixty’s. Everybody lost, and a trainer who worked for us got pregnant (not by me).

My personal guarantee was on everything. My stock was worth nothing. It was a nightmare.

Right before we closed, another gym owner con man befriended me with an evil manipulation. I was weak and he saw it. He convinced me to give him $15,000, which was my last line of credit to my name to go invest in a new company so I could go work with him. He took it and ran. People from all over were trying to put him in jail for years. Like they say, an idiot is born every day, and I was being a glutton for punishment apparently.

Now there are different kinds of debt… At least there are different reasons you might choose to get into debt. You can just be a normal American and rack up the consumer kind using credit cards and payday loans and rent your furniture and get a couch repossessed, or you can get into debt as a small business owner and live the real American Dream.

“Our bank supports hard-working entrepreneurs like you. This country was built on the backs of small businesses and if you want to do something of patriotic significance you’ll need to take out a loan with us.”

“But I thought 99% of all traditional businesses fail, so why—”

“Well, yeah, but that could take years and you will be paying a lot of taxes in the meantime to support your local community… And don’t worry about us, we’ll just take your home when you fail.”

You know what’s stupid about business debt in particular? At least with normal consumer debt you get to have all the fun and trinkets that give you temporary material pleasures! Most regular Americans just rack up the credit cards and have a blast and then file bankruptcy… And later they might enjoy a bailout paid for by the taxpayers. With small business debt, however, you get an entire decade of lost hopes and dreams.

“So let’s see, would you like to take a cruise around the world for a year, buy a Lamborghini, and have a wild shopping spree to Best Buy every day for a month…

‘Or would your prefer to have all the same debt and just sit in a cold unfinished foreclosed house filling out endless paperwork for the IRS?”

“Hmmmm…. That paperwork in a cold empty house sounds pretty nice. Do I get extra airline miles with that?”

There was one time I was in court and remember representing myself in front of the judge. Even the judge admitted that he thought I really got screwed. The landlord took pity on me and released me from my obligations to him, although that was only a part of what I owed. He was still trying to collect over fifty-thousand in back rent. He tried to get the partners to come back together to make it work, but it wasn’t happening.

Lessons From The Loss Of Retrofit

Always Go Low Overhead (my dad warned me, but I had to learn the hard way)

Pick the right partners, because breaking up is hard to do

Handle conflict with care. It’s like a seriously inflamed hemorrhoid

The only way out of the business that continues to profit is to go from true business owner to investor (or a “B” to an “I”, as Robert Kiyosaki suggests in Rich Dad, Poor Dad). Become the financier and get a replacement who has skin in the game with ownership. Otherwise, just cut your losses since that ship is eventually going to go down like the Titanic!

I fell into a deep depression in 2007 and 2008. I would lie around in my bathroom all day and Mae would understandably be upset and worried. I would pour through emails and paper trails looking for a way to fight everyone. I was angry and sad and had never seen such loss.

I eventually drug my sorry tail out of the house and started over working at a little gym in Snohomish as a personal trainer. I felt like a nobody. I later took a second job crawling under houses for an insulation company, do estimates while lying in rat feces. I had spiders crawling all over me every day, lived out of their trucks, and had insulation in my hair and on my skin that never seemed to wash out—always itching.

I hated myself. I found myself in the crawl spaces, talking to myself and feeling sorry and mumbling: “I used to be on the 5th Avenue stage! We got a standing ovation at the end of A Chorus Line after our perfect show and I started balling!” Then, I was too angry to cry so I just went emotionally numb for a time.

(Ironically, this same company became a consulting client almost a decade later and hired me on full-time to transform their marketing strategy, but that is another story).

After the loss, it took me ten years to forgive everyone, and I am almost ready to forgive myself too. It has taken a lot of work since I live with the repercussions still to this day. The good news is that I never declared bankruptcy since I don’t really believe in it. I have lived modestly and worked hard and followed the Debt Buster plan that AdvoCare, the nutrition company we are distributors for, provided me. I highly recommend everyone at least check out their debt reduction program, and the people are wonderful.

Using that system and by selling things off and earning additional plan-B income, we have gone from 2.2 million dollars of debt down to under two-hundred-thousand. Our dream is to one day be debt free, and we see that as possible now. Granted, I lost my condo in downtown Seattle, had to short-sell the Florida property and sell most of my personal belongings, while working the new business on the side of multiple jobs. It is not easy, but I believe it will build character and be worth it in the long run.

I eventually started a boot camp business, called Snohomish Boot Camps that grew to four cities and had eight trainers working for me. We had hundreds of clients and helped people shed thousands of pounds. We did huge fundraisers and donated to charity. It was a rocking few years again from 2009 to 2012. We were also rocking and rolling in AdvoCare earning a substantial residual income. We had a month where we made a little over $7,000 just from that alone and decided Mae could leave her job in science to follow her dream, which was to be a mom to our two kids, Phinneas and Keira. At that time, it appeared it would all work out just fine.

Of course, we had another rude awakening. Perhaps I got a little ahead of myself again and tried to grow the fitness business too rapidly. I had a big vision to change the world with my boot camp system and franchise.

One of my trainers had a different idea of how it would be and she took the biggest camp I had and “moved” (a euphemism for “stole”) all the clients in a pretty well-executed coup d’état. Now, I am to blame for several poor leadership blunders, but it doesn’t justify that extreme of action. Maybe I do deserve it anyway, I don’t know. Well, she wanted more money, and she thought I was rolling in the dough and just holding out and didn’t believe me when I said I wasn’t really making any money.

The truth is that I was living on under approximately $24,000 per year, and much of our income was coming from other sources, not from the boot camps. The reason she couldn’t believe it is that our gross revenue was very high. What she didn’t understand, because she was not and probably never will be a business owner, is that there is a huge difference between revenue and net income. I had huge expenses and was using the majority on the payroll (including her) and financing the launch of other camps so that someday if I worked really hard, I would eventually make good money on it personally.

I decided to sell what was left of the company but the new owners and I had some serious differences, so I was no longer involved at all. I found myself “retired,” but at least we were doing well enough in AdvoCare to make ends meet, which was the entire purpose of the plan-B income, to begin with.

After that, I have gone back to training and launched a boot camp with a new system I developed. I enjoy it and I help other people start their own fitness boot camp businesses as well. This has also lead me to small-business consulting and a new opportunity that is exciting and life-changing.

It is all good honest work now and I have zero partners, other than my wife. I am a believer now that most of the time the only ship sure to sink is a partnership (never say never?), and all of these learning lessons and never-ending debt payments were my way of having to pay a stupid tax for my lack of wisdom.

Lessons From The Loss Of Snohomish Boot Camps

There always is a way to exit and get to make lemonade out of lemons (E.g. I created a consulting practice and wrote a book).

Businesses without high overhead and debt are easy to change or get out of.

“Strictly Business” is a misnomer, and “It’s not personal” is a lie. It’s always personal, so you have to be prepared to handle it.

Leadership is influence, and it requires service and a servant’s heart. The business is not there to serve you, as much as you wish it were the other way around. If you treat it that way, you end up killing the Golden Goose and choking on the feathers. If it hurts you too much to see the world as it really is, you can always go back to being a lazy consumer and working for someone else and losing your influence. Then someone can tell you what to do all day and you can choose bondage. Freedom isn’t free.

Doing it “for the money” is a trap and a weird paradox. We must follow our dreams and passions to bring light to the world, and the light is what people pay for. Yet we feel we need money to follow our dreams, which entices us to choose careers and projects based on the lure of money, rather than the dream. We wait for the money so we can invest in the dream, but by then it’s too late… We are caught in a Catch 22.

Ok, this one is going to be challenging not to sound sexist (although I assure you that it isn’t), but here it goes… If you are a man:

Working with women is more complicated than working with men.

As a man, having women work for you is going to make you man up.

Having a bunch of women running your business is either going to be the best idea in the world or a recipe for drama and disaster…

And you can’t blame anyone but yourself (Just like the Jimmy Buffet song says).

Whew! Glad I’m getting through that lesson relatively unscathed until the hate mail comes in.)

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In the next post, I will continue with more interesting interviews.

Are you from Generation X? I want to hear what you think! Please comment below and participate in the conversation about What They Didn’t Teach Us Gen Xers In High School. What do you wish someone told you when you were eighteen?

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Life After High School: Chapter 12 Stupid Tax Welcome to Chapter 12 of my blog-to-book project: Life After High School: Secrets To A Successful Life By Those Who Have Had Twenty Years To Think About It

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judithghernandez87 · 7 years

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10 Things You Can Do RIGHT NOW to Improve Your Online Business or Blog

No huge intro needed for this post. Here are ten actionable items that you can do right now to improve your online business or blog.

1. Re-Evaluate Your Goals

On a piece of paper (yes, paper), write down where you want your business or blog to be a year from now. Think about the following when doing so:

Number specific items, such as:

Earnings

Traffic

Sales

Subscribers/followers

Non-number specific items, such as:

Authority

Design

Happiness

Lifestyle

So often we get stuck in the routine of just doing things that we forget exactly why we’re do what we’re doing. Re-evaluating your goals will give you the boost of energy you need to get things done, and possibly even help you realize that you need to do things a little differently to get where you want to go.

2. Visit Your Homepage for the “First Time”

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: first impressions are HUGELY important, especially online. You’ve got less than ten seconds to make a new visitor decide to stick around, or else they’re going to leave.

So, what can we do?

Role play.

Pretend to be a brand new visitor to your site. Go to your homepage and run through the following questionnaire in your head:

What do I notice first?

Can I understand exactly what the site is about without scrolling or clicking anything?

Have I seen other sites like this before?

How easy is the website to navigate?

What seems to be missing?

By quickly answering those five questions, you can easily see what kinds of things need to happen to improve your website. Maybe it’s just as easy as making some fonts larger, or taking away some annoying advertisements or popups.

If you find that any of these changes will take less than five minutes to, do them right now. If it will take you more than five minutes to do something, make sure to write it down or put it on a to-do list so you can complete it later.

3. Check and Correct Crawl Errors

Using Google’s Webmaster Tools, you can see if there are any errors on your website that you can fix right now.

Step 1: Visit Google’s Webmaster Tools.

Step 2: If you haven’t already, setup a Google Account (if you have Gmail, you’re good), and verify your website address. To verify, you’ll have to “add new site,” and either use a meta or html page on your server to verify your website. Google will walk you though it.

Step 3: After you’re all setup, click on your verified website. On the right hand side, you’ll see a section called “Crawl Errors.” The Google bots that crawl through your website keep track of any errors that they find along the way, which may include broken links, or links that people should have access to, but for some reason don’t. You can click on each individual error and find out exactly where it’s happening, and correct the problem right away.

4. Grade Your Website

An even more thorough way to check the health of your website is to get it graded by a site like Website Grader. It’s free (and you don’t even have to enter your email address like most do). It spits out a nice, lengthy but easy to understand report about your website and the things you can do immediately to make it better.

For example, if your meta data or website descriptions are too long, it will tell you (and by how much). It also checks your RSS feed, social media, your image tags, and a whole bunch of other things you should have optimized on your website.

Try it out, it’s free!

5. Ask Someone a Question

No matter what level you’re at with blogging or online business, you’re always going to have questions that you’d like to have answers to. I have questions all of the time, and I’m not shy about going to someone more experienced than me for an answer. More often than not, I will hear back from them.

It’s easy, and you can do it right now. Don’t be shy. When you think about it, what’s the worst that can really happen? You won’t get a response back?

That’s not the end of the world. It happens, and you can keep moving forward.

6. Shoot a Video

That’s right. Turn on the camera that’s connected to your computer and shoot a video of yourself right now.

What are you going to talk about?

Anything related to your blog.

Spend five minutes shooting an unedited video, and upload it to YouTube. After it’s uploaded, make sure you have relevant keywords in the title and in the tags section, and make sure to write out your entire URL in the first line of the video description. Blast it to all of your social media buddies without a thought.

In Tim Ferriss’s The Four Hour Workweek, he likes to give us exercises that we can do that help us step out of our comfort zones. This needs to happen every so often in order to make real progress and take bold actions.

For example, one of his exercises is just to lay flat on the ground in a public place, and look straight into the air. It might sound weird, but if you can do that, just imagine what you can do in front of a crowd when you’re talking about something you love and are passionate about.

Shooting a video on a whim like this will help you learn how to step out of your comfort zone, and it’s good practice for public speaking.

7. Spend 5 Minutes to Thank 5 Of Your Customers, Subscribers, or Readers

Going the extra mile to just say thanks to someone for no particular reason can make someone’s day. Not only will those five people remember who you are just a little bit more, but you’ll never know, one of them may come back and repay you somehow later in the future just for being extra nice.

Like in happy, successful relationships, it’s the little unplanned gestures that make the relationships really special.

8. Test Something

You should always be testing something on your website or blog.

Always.

Using Google Optimizer, split test something important on your page and wait to see the results. Even if you’re not selling anything, you can still test conversion rates for subscribership, email opt-ins, and even click-through rates for various links on your site.

If you don’t know about Google Optimizer or exactly how to use it, you can read more about it here at How to Run Free Split Tests Using Google Optimizer (this was a blog post I wrote in 2008, but it’s still relevant!).

9. Turn Off the Distractions

Distractions are all around us—especially for those of us who blog and work from home—trying to stop us from progressing and getting things done.

First, understand what those distractions are. Secondly, conciously make an effort to turn them off, and only turn them back on once you accomplish something and reach a particular goal or finish something that you meant to finish.

For me, I have to turn off my Twitter notifications, as well as my email notifications, so I don’t get notified of a message in the middle of doing something. Also, I put my phone on silent, and sometimes work in full screen so I’m not tempted to click on certain icons.

In the same sense, I consciously think about what’s helping me progress, and what is not. Sometimes, what I think is helping me isn’t doing much for me at all. I take the 80/20 rule, figure out what that twenty percent is that’s making a difference in my business, and I work on that.

As a great Internet marketer once said, “You gotta starve the horses, and feed the stallions.”

10. Follow Up With Your Audience

Whether you have an online business selling some kind of product, or a blog, you can always benefit by asking your customers or readers what they would like to see improved.

Seriously, if you ask, they will tell you.

Send an email to your previous customers (you’re keeping track of their email addresses, right?), or your email list (you have an email list, right?), or even write a blog post asking for suggestions on how to make their experience a little better. Remember, it’s all about your audience’s experience, not your own.

This is how I finally ended up with a website design for this blog that I love. I went through a previous redesign, asked what people thought, and I got great feedback from you, which is all that really matters.

Not only will this help you figure out what you can do to improve your business or blog, but it will show everything that you care enough about them to ask.

So there you have it. Ten things you can do right now for your online business or blog. If you’d like to help me out, please feel free to leave a comment, or retweet this post on Twitter.

Thanks for your support, and wishing you all the best!

Cheers!

10 Things You Can Do RIGHT NOW to Improve Your Online Business or Blog originally posted at Dave’s Blog

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