Round 1

So I went to the Mayweather Hatton fight in Vegas this weekend. I just got back from Vegas today. The fight was beautiful with Floyd “Money” Mayweather knocking out Ricky Hatton in the tenth round. It seemed like everyone wanted Hatton to win because he was the underdog. I’ve never really been into these underdog stories.

People want the underdog to win because as humans we crave equity. The assumption exists in our minds that life is supposed to be fair, and I’ve got bad news for you…it’s not. Floyd Mayweather is the best pound for pound fighter in the world, and he will be the first to tell you. He talked so much shit before the fight about how he was going to kill Hatton and he did.

What’s greater and more difficult? To be a little underdog and land a lucky punch to take down the great one or to be consistently good all the time. That’s the harder thing to do in life and it takes much more work. That’s what we pride our studio on and our careers.

In listening to Steve Martin’s audiobook Born Standing Up, he made a quote that I have modeled my life around. I don’t remember the exact words but involved something like, “Everyone has a great night, but the only ones that are remembered are the ones that are consistently good every night.” And he went on to explain that’s why he shot for being good every night instead of being great.

It’s time that this society embraced the motto that only the strong survive and that winners keep on winning. It’s time that we quit searching for equity and start paving our own way. It’s time that we embrace the fact that those who have tons of money and talent worked for every bit of it. There’s an opportunity cost for everything so lets quit rooting for the underdog.

LD

Something for Everyone

While Friend and his brother were at the baseball game, I decided
that I also needed to get on a plane and fly off to do something
entertaining. Get away for a day, and do something that I actually
found interesting. It’s not that I think baseball is the most boring
sport in the world, golf is. Baseball is number two, and it even
duked it out with NASCAR there for a bit. Don’t get me wrong, I would never watch any of them, but if I had to…I think I will side with this redneck I was forced to sit next to at a bar one time back in
college. He said he could sit and bare the sight of a bunch of cars
driving really fast around the exact same fucking circle for five
hours just for the small chance that one of them might crash into
another car causing a massive pile up of destruction and death.

Personally, I will take my money to Vegas. And I did. I had my driver
pick up Jeff, my set designer, and we headed out within the hour.
That’s the great thing about LA, Vegas is just a three and half hour
drive away. However, that drive sucks on the way home if you didn’t
win any money. Since I’m not the greatest gambler in the world, I
just started flying.

Jeff was killing it at the roulette table, and I was almost to the
point to where if I kept going, I was going to have to sign over my
house to the Bellagio. Since I love my new house, I left Jeff in the
casino and went walking around the shops. I was enjoying a Wetzel’s
Pretzel Dog while sitting on a bench located right in front of Prada
and Gucci. I thought back to college when I was young and broke, and
used to see stores like that and say to myself “If I were rich, I
would buy all my girlfriends a Prada Bag and give it to them looking
like a total badass in some Gucci Sunglasses.” Now, that I am rich I
don’t buy any of that shit. I spend all my money on art, and
investments, and tons of other things that would seem totally boring
to the non-rich.

When you’re a filmmaker, the word “boring” cannot be associated with you in any way possible or people will refuse to pay 14 dollars to watch your work. So my pretzel dog and I went into both Prada and
Gucci and made some rather large purchases. I stocked up on them
equally. I figured with Halloween right around the corner, I could
give each kid that came trick-or-treating at my house a Prada Bag
with a pair of Gucci sunglasses inside. This way, when Tobey Maguire
thinks he’s the cool guy on the block cause he’s giving out regular
Butterfinger bars instead of the fun sized ones, the kids will just
tell Spiderman that his candy is almost as boring as his love scenes
with Mary Jane.

AJ