Tigers Are Back

Last week's blog described a meeting at Peets with but three members: the writer, the corporate VP and the attorney/politician. Here below is describe a lunch shared by the remaining two members that same afternoon.

They meet for lunch on a census-work-day for both. The publisher is done at noon. The entrepreneur (wearing a beret) is due to report at 1:30 in the same area. Down near AT&T Park there is a very famous greasy spoon breakfast joint. It's sunny so they order and take a seat outside on the tarmac and wait to be served. It's warm and a chilled beer would be refreshing, I'm sure. Reports that filtered in say that, in fact, they had ice tea. The business man tells how they made him a Crew Chief as soon as he walked in the door down at the U.S. Census office. After two days of training, he was assigned a small team and managed to get them functioning quickly. He's a natural leader - a tough love kind of guy. Unfortunately he made a female enumerator angry and she reported him. The female in questions disappeared, but he's still enjoying the work - however now he's just a regular grunt with a bag over his shoulder. He does open up about his business enterprise as never before. He reports that he is broke but does own, free and clear, a warehouse full of organic lotions that he designed, formulated and contracted to have bottled. He boasts that his lotions are totally green, natural and sustainable, inside and out. Sales efforts are just getting underway and he must make a decision quickly regarding distribution models very soon. The publisher is ramping up too. ""Initially I'll be publishing hands-on learning guides on monetization and creation of interactive courses." She describes it as "targeting".

And now, this week's meeting. It is held at the home of the entrepreneur. It's been two weeks since we five have surrounded the same coffee table. We get right into it. First, we must assure the host that he is harmless, a sweet man and that he should continue to be just his usual, authentic self. I warn him that there will always be ladies who don't like him. So what? After bringing the rest of the team up to speed on his lotions enterprise, the ball is passed to the corporate VP. He uses his whole 15-minutes describing his childhood dream of joining the Ringling Brothers Circus. He reports to that in three weeks he'll be leaving for Orlando, his new home. He is the International Tour Manager. That is one week after Tiger Team is set to breakup after completing the ten consecutive meetings we signed up for. The writer can only wring his hands and describe all the work on his plate currently: two blogs generating no direct income, getting a completed script to the agent that requested it (with the promise of income), working with a paying client to adapt his story to screenplay format, and two screenwriting grants to prepare for. Nothing but white-water ahead. The publisher passes out her business plan summary to be commented on next week. The attorney/politician speaks of his dog ownership research. Will he or won't he? The dog drama builds.