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wosoenthusiast · 4 years ago

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Webinar: Celebrating LGBT+ Inclusion at Chelsea

I know this event was not recorded so here are some notes from the “Celebrating LGBT+ Inclusion at Chelsea” webinar. Please note: these are NOT direct quotes!! I didn’t start taking super detailed notes until a few minutes into the panel, sorry about that. And I did a quick read through but I apologize for any typos or grammatical errors.

The panel included Chris Gibbons (moderator), Pernille Harder, Sara Matthews, Graeme Le Saux, and Funke Awoderu

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Chris: introduced each panelist and talked a little about rainbow laces

Graeme: (general point: we’ve made a lot of progress in the last 5-10 years, especially since I retired. Sorry, I wasn’t taking as detailed notes right at first)

Funke: (general point: Authentic support is so important.)

Sara: Sport brings people together. Chelsea is a brand with international following and a huge platform. Zero tolerance policy for a long time, internal and external. Demonstrating by doing not just by saying. Want to understand their demographic, look at areas where they are less diverse and how to address that. Look at who works in football, show a different type of recruitment.

Chris: I was nervous about being an out gay man coming into working at the FA. I asked in my interview about whether it was an open environment for a gay man and got a very thorough answer about anti-discrimination policies. Has that developed?

Funke: Yes, if you can’t see it, you can’t be it. Data tells us something. Use it well to inform you plans. Proud of the LGBTQ+ people in the FA and their contributions. Don’t want to put people in boxes so we are trying to build a progressive, diverse environment. Learn from others and people’s lived experiences. Listen to the stories people tell. We’re on the right road. If you can’t see it, you can’t be it. And it needs to happen on the leadership level.

Chris: Welcome to Chelsea, Pernille. I want to understand your experience of culture in the women’s game- previous clubs, international, and now being new to Chelsea. Women’s game is known for being open. What are your thoughts/experiences?

Pernille: Women’s’ football has always been open about homosexuality. Locker room and fans are very open. In Denmark environment- I wasn’t out, not comfortable. No one else was homosexual. It’s important that you don’t feel alone. I felt a difference right away when I came to Sweden, it was so normalized. I felt I could be myself which is the most important thing.

Graeme: I agree so much. If you feel you’re isolated, it stops you being yourself and others being themselves too. Infrastructure and support and work being done outside the game holding football accountable. Learning from other environments that are further ahead in inclusivity. Pernille, I’m curious, do you think not being out in Denmark held you back?

Pernille: It might, I didn’t think about it at the time. [After coming out], I felt more calm and secure and like I could be 100% self. I felt more honest with myself. It feels better when you trust yourself and what you’re doing. It reflects when you play too.

Chris: Where does it come from? Fans, locker room, Chelsea? What creates a positive, inclusive environment?

P: All individuals are open minded. No one uses sexuality or religion in a negative way. Comes from teammates, staff, everything around you. [It’s important that] the highest leaders in the club are inclusive, affects everyone underneath and what values to act from.

Sara: Reading on stonewalls website 43% of LGBTQ+ people don’t feel welcome at public events (not sure about this stat), such a shame. Being at Kingsmeadow, wow, what a different number that would be. A great place to come enjoy sport and feel very welcome and be a positive perception change.

Chris: We have lots of women’s team fans with us. Go to Chelsea women’s games!! (Mentions Chelsea Pride group and a few other groups and initiatives.) Graeme, why is a group like this so important? Why did you want to be a patron?

Graeme: To get honest feedback from people, get perspectives. Groups of different communities and perspectives are so important. They are a signpost for people who don’t have the confidence or support around them in their own lives. Can help people get into watching football and know that it’s a safe space. Every space should be safe of course, which is the next chapter- people don’t have to work under and umbrella to feel safe and welcome. It’s all built on trust and openness. Willingness to admit you might not get everything right all the time.

Chris: Pernille, you haven’t had much chance to engage with fans at Kingsmeadow, but why do you think these groups are important?

P: It’s important to feel a part of something and not alone. Groups like that help with this. Yesterday, we finally had fans back, 700 I think. I can’t wait to get more. In women’s football, fans love football, they don’t care who you are- sexuality, skin color.

Chris: Funke mentioned before the diversity of LGBTQ+. Trans people still feel a lot of barriers in taking part in sport. In 2014, the FA published policy on trans participation. Do you think football is becoming more inclusive for trans people?

Funke: This is one area that the whole game needs to collaborate better. LGBTQ+ identities are all lumped together right now. Lots of differences in LGBTQ+ community that we’re not considering, more conversations around gender identity, inclusion, education- we need to do the work around the journey for LGB work and apply it to trans inclusion. Now more than ever. There’s so much toxicity and miseducation. If we’re true to ‘the game is for everybody’, we can’t leave trans community behind. To come out as trans is not an easy thing to do, LGB people can pass but trans people sometimes cannot. Educate ourselves, use that to inform policy

Chris: How does that reflect what clubs are doing?

Sara: On the subject of intersectionality- we have to be honest. The data we have today is very recent. People are reluctant to report honestly, there may be fear. From an employer of choice perspective and perception- it’s about fairness, change the stereotype (like who works in football). We’re talking about diversity and inclusion every day. Huge range of departments which means you can bring in a huge range of people with different skills and experiences. You can create a different culture for the organization. Starts at recruitment, put forward the culture of the organization. When she sits in interviews, people ask about DEI, sustainability, corporate social responsibility. People expect their organization to have a narrative and verbalize what they think and feel about discrimination. Chelsea has stepped forward and said zero tolerance but message needs to be confirmed internally. Much more to be done. Education and information- it was not too long ago when women weren’t prevalent in the workforce, but it’s changed. Change happens fast. Lots of new and different people entering the workforce. Listen to people with different perspectives and points of view. We can create a better employee environment by making it so no one is ‘the other’, which comes with diversity

Chris: People have seen news about fans booing when people kneel and other negative reaction and that’s what sticks. What more needs to be done to tackle culture of hate in the stands? ..... Pernille, do you hear much discriminatory language in the stands at women’s game? What’s your experience?

P: No, fan culture is very different in men’s and women’s football. Men’s football is so big so there are a lot of different football fans. It’s difficult to say what to do to change it. It’s important to do something and act. Responsibility of players and other fans- trying to create a different fan culture. Standing up when you hear something. Players need to be stubborn and must stand up for each other.

Chris: Do you think if there was abuse, the response form the women’s game would be robust and quick? More solidarity [than in men’s football]?

P: I don’t know because I haven’t experienced it. I guess so

Graeme: It’s great that you haven’t experienced that. That’s a really big plus.

Chris: Chelsea was the first club to introduce fan re-education (like if a fan was banned for certain language anti-Semitism, they’d have a chance to learn more about why that language was not acceptable). Player re-education exists. How do we get fans to understand this better?

Graeme: It’s important to understand context of where it’s coming from, help someone overcome prejudice by learning something new. Doesn’t send out the right message to just throw someone out. There are a lot of things we grow up with contribute to this ignorance, so figure out where it’s coming from. Set boundaries of what we will and won’t tolerate. Give people a chance to own up to their mistakes. I’ve made some big mistakes in my career and been punished. I was taught to be honest, deal with consequences, and move on. That might remove external pressure. Make transition a bit smoother [as football moves forward], bring more people along

Chris: Funke’s been involved with the Rainbow laces campaign since early days. What impact do you think it has on the pro and grassroots game?

Funke: Immeasurable impact. Every start of the campaign gets better and better with the amount of support. It connect with adult and youth football. People love what the campaign stands for and want to get behind it and support it. Normalizing the playing field, this is a great opportunity to demonstrate the values and culture of your club. Challenge: how to continue to innovate and be creative in conversations and take it to the next level. It continues to grow and grow. More and more, people are taking a personal stand and educating themselves. Campaign has been a success but we won’t rest on our laurels. We must continue.

Chris: I tell youth players about the rainbow laces campaign and they sort of roll their eyes because they learn about and talk about this in school (and with their peers). The culture moving forward will be much more inclusive with the next generation of players. Do you think this will happen in clubs? (I didn’t quite catch this question but I think this is what he asked)

Sara: Yes. People wanted to be associated and show support, bummer we aren’t working at Stamford bridge in person. The next generation is going to be so important. There’s a lot of hate, and standing up against all of is important. People do want to learn- the more you learn, the less afraid you are to ask questions. People are still afraid of offending sometimes too but we’re moving toward really celebrating difference.

Chris: (reads a submitted question out loud about how Pernille is a role model and inspired this person to come out and be themselves) Pernille, how does it feel to be a role model for LGBTQ+ people, not only in sport?

Pernille: It’s great to hear this question. When I was younger, I missed some role models who were homosexual. I try to live as if it’s nothing special. I’m just myself, not hiding anything. That means showing pictures with my girlfriend and just acting normally. I don’t want to do something that doesn’t feel genuine. A lot of people like that I’m just myself and not embarrassed [about being homosexual].

Chris: There are people out there that think you’re a role model too, Graeme. Do you have a sense of the importance of role models?

Graeme: Once you have a profile, you recognize responsibilities associated with that. Whether you like it or not, you become a role model. None of us set out to be a role model. If you take money from sponsors because they think you can sell the product, you should be happy to be a role model, comes with the territory. Some people are more suited to that so it’s important to not hold people to go beyond their comfort. I take great pride in my ability to support things I believe in. I support in public and private and I don’t share everything about myself in public. Stand up and support values and principles, even when it’s not related to me. I was very alone in experience of defending myself [from rumors of being gay] while supporting people around me. It’s a big challenge in many ways. I will always do what I do out of principle. With a profile, you can reach more people.

Chris: Another question for Sara and Funke- what is the club’s response to supporters who have troll comments on rainbow laces posts? Should the club work harder to block and remove those comments?

Sara: The club won’t be dissuaded from doing the right thing. Follow discrimination laws- we will support and take action. Block and report when they can on social media. We do see other people who are posting challenge those comments. Those are important parts, have to work with social media companies, it’s not just trolling in football. Social media companies have to help as well to help manage this

Funke: Any organization driven by principles and values, there will always be haters sharing their view. We take the same measures that Sara just said. Year to year, the ecosystem conversation, calling people out, challenging people back. We know those comments will come. Work with social media companies to have more coordinated effort to take things down. Threshold for football is higher compared to those organizations [social media companies], makes it challenging to take things down immediately

Chris: Graeme and Pernille, do you deal with trolls?

P: yes, there are a few. There will always be haters, especially when you speak up about your opinion. I mostly ignore them and focus on the positive. More positive than negative, positive people will comment on the negative which is amazing

G: yes, I do. I don’t like to give those people oxygen. As soon as you start engaging, you risk it escalating. Turn to social media companies for support too.

Chris: That’s the end of the hour, thanks all for your time! I’m so looking forward to where these conversations will go in the future.

#chelsea #pernille harder #LGBT+ inclusion #chelsea fc #graeme le saux #the fa

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conversationswithcole · 4 years ago

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I Drank the Kool-Aid

Alright folks, so I have been wanting to document my newest fitness journey for a little while now, but I didn’t want to jump the gun considering I am still VERY new.

For those of you who don’t know, I drank the damn kool-aid. I joined a Crossfit gym. Crossfit has always been something that I have deeply desired to try but was too nervous to step out of my comfort zone on my own to do it. Last year my rugby team started winter training at local Crossfit gym and unfortunately due to my work schedule I was unable to participate. I was super bummed because I thought that was my perfect opportunity to try it out without all the awkwardness and anxiety that would follow. In the meantime I joined your regular Blink fitness and continued to lift as I had been for the past few years. Fast forward to the pandemic when gyms closed and I partially trained for a half marathon until I gave up. At the time I wasn’t really doing any exercising for about three months besides an occasional run here and there.

I vividly remember going to Maine with Vincent at the end of July and how horribly uncomfortable I was feeling with my body. I was so insecure, anxious and irritable and it was hard for it not to effect my trip. After recently going out for dinner and drinks with some teammates, who were all signed up at the same Crossfit gym, I had decided it was finally time for me to give it a shot. I remember telling Sam that I wanted to take my first class and how nervous I was to show up. I got there early, which is very unlike me because if you know me you know that I am literally always late to everything because of who I am as a person. I sat in my car in full panic mode until Sam and Chelsea arrived and I wouldn’t walk in without them. I met my coach and he was super friendly which made things a bit easier but then he proceeded to literally torture me in the form of exercise. I couldn’t even perform the entire workout, I took ten thousands breaks and actually felt like I was dying. I will NEVER forget my first class. It was the biggest ego check I have ever had in my entire life. I signed up for a part time monthly membership right after.

It took me a few weeks to get comfortable with going to classes that my teammates weren’t in. Crossfit is intimidating as hell. You should see the babes at my gym. They’re so fucking bad-ass it’s hard not to be intimidated by their strength. It was about three weeks after my first class that I decided I wanted to sign up for an unlimited membership.

I instantly fell in love with the entire sport. In our current world rugby is non-existent and that’s a huge piece of my life that’s missing. There are so many similarities between the two that make me understand why people who love Crossfit, love Crossfit.

One of the most special pieces of rugby is the weaving of competition and sportsmanship. In Crossfit, the athletes perform with that same mindset. Everyone wants to be the fastest, strongest, finishes with the most reps in the AMRAP WOD athlete at the gym when it comes time for class. But the second they finish their last rep, before they can even catch their breath, they become your personal cheering squad. They won’t stop until you’re finished and they push you to get it done even when you don’t want too. They’re always there to encourage you, pat you on the back even when you fail and to offer their share of advice and knowledge. It’s an incredible feeling to be surrounded by so many supportive and uplifting individuals in an environment that is so challenging both mentally and physically.

I have always grappled with the unhealthy habit of comparing my performance to the performance of someone better than me. And even though between the coaches and athletes at my gym there are always people rooting for me, it’s hard not to look around and feel inadequate sometimes. Similar to most feats in life, in Crossfit what goes on in your mind determines how you perform physically. There are days where the last thing I wanted to do was show up to class and by the end of the workout I was riding this post WOD high that made me feel invincible. Then in contrast to that there are other days where I can’t wait to step foot into my little box and I struggle to get through the workout. At times I lack the ability to get my mind to come to grips with the fact that success is not and never will be linear. I don’t give myself enough credit and forget to acknowledge the fact that I am literally brand spankin’ new to this sport and four months is NOTHING. My brain thrives on constant reassurance, ask my coach Mike he can attest to that. I am so obsessive with executing each movement perfectly that I ask ten thousand questions even if I know what the answer is and I get anxious when I start to doubt my performance. I even get so nervous about staying after class to do extra skill work that I can only do it when Shannon is around to take me under her wing. It’s incredibly frustrating and even though I am able to recognize these that these obsessive, lack of self confidence thoughts are inside my head, it’s sometimes too difficult to rid myself of them.

Despite all of this, if we were to look back on my first month to now, I have made some serious progress. Each day brings a new challenge, a new goal and a new lesson. Like rugby, there is always room to learn and improve. One of the main reasons I love Crossfit is because it pushes me to do things I would have normally deemed impossible for myself. There was a time in my life where rugby was considered impossible in my life, and now here I am ten years later a co-founder of Long Island Women’s Rugby. On my best days at the gym I feel that same sense of empowerment, confidence and straight up bad bitch vibes that I get from being a female rugby player.

Another huge piece of rugby is the community that you become a part of after joining. I have seen many marriages, families, and life long friendships form between members of the rugby community. My life and who I am as a woman today is because of the people I met through rugby. I see that same sense of camaraderie at my gym. It’s funny because my 63 year old mother doesn’t really understand what I mean when I say I’m going to the gym. I’ll be gone for three hours and she thinks I’m at your average LA Fitness with a bunch of strangers lifting weights. One day she literally called me to see if everything was okay because I was there for so long. I have met so many people in such a short amount of time that I consider my friends. I genuinely enjoy their company and the more time that goes on and the more I get to know everyone the more I want to continue to come back. It is so important to surround yourself with people who make you feel good. You can do Crossfit anywhere, but part of the reason why I love it so much is because of my gym and the people in it.

It’s funny because as I reflect on my Crossfit journey I am reminded of my freshman year of rugby. When my roommate at the time, (now currently my best friend of 10 years), wanted us to join rugby I was too damn scared to get out of the car when we pulled up to practice. I made her lead the way and do all the talking while I stood there in silence. Who I was when I joined was completely different than the girl I was when I graduated. Freshman year of college was hard for me. I was homesick and I wasn’t sure being so far away from my family was what I wanted. I actually applied to schools on Long Island and was ready to transfer back home but there was something holding me back. Sure I could go home and play rugby for another school with a brand new team but something about that just didn’t feel right to me. I get that same feeling when I think about moving away from Black Bear.

2020 has been one hell of a freakin’ year, and as I sit here writing this I am in quarantine for the second time this month after my third exposure to the virus. December is really kicking my ass. Between the holidays, and losing my job and starting a new one and all this exposure to Covid I’ve barely been to the gym this month and it’s crazy to see how much that has affected me in my everyday life. If there is one thing I am most thankful for this past year, it is Black Bear.

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rogues-r-we · 4 years ago

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Halloween at the Manor was….quite the experience. Walter Worker Miyasaki, or Miya, learned this the first time she was there for it. The bots really had a big thing for the holiday. Each year, the found and fraternal family hosted a huge Halloween party, the next year better than the last. Miya had arrived at the Manor in the middle of the summer, so she was brand new to the many events that happened during the rest of the year. The first time she heard it mentioned was from Rabbit mid-September. It was time for the porcelain bot’s monthly maintenance, and Miya was the only person Rabbit currently trusted to do it.

“Have you figured out your costume for the party?”

“Rabbit, what party? I haven’t heard anything about a party.”

“The p-p-party is the biggest event at the m-m-m-m-manor! We h-host it every Hallowee-ee-een. You have to have a costume!”

Miya finished screwing in the last part that she was working on, and released Rabbit from the restraints that the bots were put in during this process.

“You b-b-better figure out your costume f-f-f-fast! The party is on H-h-h-halloween!” The energetic bot skipped out of the workroom, shriek-singing at the top of her lungs. Miya decided that it would be best to ask the other robots about this party. Not that she didn’t trust Rabbit, she just needed some more information. As Miya stepped out of the stairwell, she was greeted by four bumbling bots yelling for her. Upgrade, The Jon, Hatchworth, and Zer0 screeched to a halt in front of her.

“You don’t know about the party?!” This was said in perfect unison, which shouldn’t have scared her, but this just showed how fast information traveled in the Manor. Miya began to ask the bots some questions, which is a bad idea. It’s like talking to a bunch of children on a sugar-high.

“Calm down now,” she said, “and talk one at a time, please.”

The bots all looked down slightly bashful, until Upgrade finally piped up.

“The party is the biggest event at the Manor! There’s food and games and a costume contest and of course music of all kinds! It’s totally radical!”

Despite the pink robot’s use of slang, Miya had grasped a better understanding of the halloween party. She walked over to the Hall of Wires and knocked on the door politely. It swung open, and she stepped into the blue-tinted, metallic room.

“Spine? Are you in here? I have some questions about this Halloween Party that I’ve heard of.”

A tired and slightly gruff voice came from the ceiling. “Couldn’t you have gone to Peter or another Walter Worker? I’m busy.”

“Well, I trust you the most to remember information the longest, and you’re probably going to be more helpful than Rabbit and the others.”

With a deep sigh and an exhale of steam, The Spine in his snake form wiggled out of the wires.

“What do you want to know, partner?” Realizing it was Miya, his disposition changed into a more comfortable one. “Ah, it’s just you. I forget you’re brand new to the Manor. Would you like a better explanation?”

She nodded her head yes, and The Spine smiled. He moved himself over and guided her over to his desk, where she immediately sat in the chair. He then disappeared, and after a few seconds, returned in his chassis and took a seat across from Miya.

“When PA Walter I originally began hosting this party, it was an expo to show off his robots and other mechanisms. Slowly, as people found the bots less scary and more entertaining and kind, the later generations turned it into a Halloween party. Six orders some of the best catering, builds fantastic games, has us bots judge a costume contest, and, of course, hires some performers other than us. We do perform, though, I promise,” he snickered. “Anyways, the best part of these performances are that some of our story songs come to life. Both Gomely and the Ghost Grinder are frequent attendees, yet both also require constant supervision so they don’t summon anything. We also occasionally end up with a steamboat in the basement, but that just happens at random no matter the time of the year.”

Miya nodded her head, understanding better what occurred.

“Thank you kindly, Mr. Spine. I appreciate the information.”

He accompanied her to the entrance doors, since the wires were quite the maze. A kiss was bestowed upon her hand, and she exited the Hall. Now, she just had to figure out her costume for the party. Over the next month, Miya created the costume only she could dream of, with the help of the other Walter Workers and one of the local seamstresses in San Diego. The morning of the party, the family was chatting about costumes and other important things. She heard Upgrade lean over to Jon and say something along the lines of “They’re bringing back the bubble room?”, followed by an eager head nod from the golden robot. Quietly, she grabbed a bagel and some cream cheese and headed back to her room to finish up her work for the day, as well as to get ready. That evening, as she touched up her makeup, there was a knock on the door. In sauntered Rabbit, wearing an extremely intricate black and red ballgown with an asymmetrical hemline and a high collar. She paired the dress with red fishnets, black knee high stiletto boots, lacy black gloves, and some stark black jewelry that stood out from her porcelain covering. Her hair was put up in a chignon, and when she pulled her red-painted lips back a pair of fangs (hopefully false) was shown.

“Rabbit, you look….amazing.”

“Thank you Miz Miya, c-c-can I help you with anything?”

“Not now sweet girl, but if I do I’ll call for you, okay?”

She nodded and exited the room. Miya turned back to face her appearance in the mirror. She had applied tan foundation to her pale white skin to give off the appearance that she was still relatively human. Her face was iridescent, shimmering from powders and gels she detailed her face with. Her long blue-black hair cascaded down her back in waves, decorated with a hairpiece containing little glowing lights. All she had left to do was to put on her costume. She slipped off her comfy button up shift dress and socks and then changed, preparing herself for the night she had coming. As soon as she arrived on the main floor of the building, the whole Walter clan (adopted, birth, robot, or otherwise) stared at the gorgeous figure before them. Miya had created a silvery colored dress, with holographic boots to match and beautiful iridescent butterfly wings on her back. She accompanied said outfit with more holographic looking jewelry and a lightly shimmering shawl. Gasps and whispers came from across the room, wondering who the pretty girl was. That soon came to a halt, as Rabbit noticed her.

“Miz Miya, you look incre-e-e-edible!”

The whole clan soon came over and began fawning over Miya’s costume.

“Get ready Mi,” said Walter Worker Camille who was dressed as a bird of paradise, “for the most….interesting occasion you’ll ever experience in this Manor.”

A few hours into the party, Miya was already exhausted. The whole house was completely transformed into a circus of spooks and horror. Many icons that Steam Powered Giraffe had sung about showed up. In the backyard of the manor, though, held the attraction most interesting to Miya. There was a thick surrounding of fog, and in the middle, a graying man holding an organ grinder like you’d see at a fair. The first time she’d approached him, The Spine had appeared out of nowhere and pulled her away, telling her that “it’s a bad idea to do anything with this man.” But now, she would make it to him and see what he had to provide.

Making her way through the thick fog, Miya heard a soft song coming from near where she had originally seen the man. As she got closer, the song grew louder, and she grew more and more drawn to it. Then, she entered the clearing where he was seen for the first time. Surrounding the man were more gray, shadowy figures, women and men dressed in clothing from all eras, dancing and spinning without a care in the world. Unbeknownst to her, this man’s song had been hypnotizing her mind. This was the Ghost Grinder, who brought the dead back to dance, as well as taking new dancers from amongst the living. Miya stepped into the circle of people, and was immediately swept off her feet by a tall man in a tuxedo, who looked curiously similar to The Spine. The music’s spell blinded her, and she was tossed from partner to partner, enjoying every minute of it.

At the party, The Spine had been searching for Miya. He hadn’t seen her since the incident by the Ghost Grinder, and had grown worried. He snagged Chelsea and Camille, and pulled them into an unused room.

“Have either one of you seen Miss Miya? It’s been a while since I’ve seen her and I’m concerned for her safety.”

The two blue haired women looked at each other, and shrugged their shoulders.

“Haven’t seen her, and I’ve been all over the manor,” Camille said. “Do you want us to help you search?”

“Yes, please. The last time I saw her she was out by the Ghost Grinder.”

Both girls took in sharp breaths. “We’re gonna need more people if we have to go down there,” Chelsea murmured quietly.

After explaining the situation, Spine, Chelsea, Camille, Peter VI, and Matter Master David, they headed down there. They all had earplugs in to assist them in not getting put under the man’s spell. Spine didn’t have to do this, for he is a robot and not a human being. All of a sudden, The Spine stopped and stared. The search party looked over, and saw Miya dancing amongst the ghosts, a peaceful smile on her face.

“Miya! Please! Come back!” Chelsea yelled to the pretty girl. Spine immediately groaned and spoke up, “Miss Chelsea, she’s not coming back. Once they’ve been taken, they’re gone forever.”

After staring for a few minutes, the search party headed back to the manor. Rabbit had been escorting the guests out, leading them out to their cars, thanking them for coming. It was around 4 in the morning so it was about time to go. As soon as the group stepped inside, a hush fell over the occupants of Walter Manor who were left. Spine stepped up.

“She’s gone.”

Rabbit shrieked, “who d-d-d-d-did this?” and then immediately shut down completely.

“It was the ghost grinder.”

All faces went pale white. Slowly, one by one, everyone left the room, heading to wherever made them feel best.

“Mr. David, take Rabbit. Make sure she’s functioning,” Spine instructed. David nodded, and rolled the sleeping robot into the elevator for the basement.

The Spine and the two Walter Workers sat there in complete silence, until Spine spoke up again: “Ladies, please put an advertisement out there that Walter Robotics is hiring mechanics.”

The women just sat there, still stunned.

“I said GO!”

They both jumped up and ran out, and Spine was left alone again. His sister lost her best friend, the company lost a valued member, and he lost the person he considered his “child.” Better to forget this.

Okay so this fic was inspired by Ghost Grinder if you couldn’t tell! Thank you to everyone who wanted me to post! Love y’all! Compliments and constructive critiscism are appreciated!

#steam powered giraffe #spg #ghost grinder #steampoweredgiraffe #fanfiction #oc

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mchutchmendes · 5 years ago

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Island Records

Hi everyone. So I wrote a thing. A Shawn Mendes thing. My first Shawn pic so please be kind and let me know what you think.

BIGGEST of thank you’s to my girl, @shawnase for encouraging me to write and for editing and your feedback and love! I appreciate it!

Warnings? Idk how to do these...swearing? Just super awkward fluff?

Reader's POV

“So all you have to do when the phone rings is answer and say ‘Thank you for calling Island Records how may I help you?’ If they want to be transferred to someone, check to make sure whomever they are looking to speak to isn’t in a meeting or on their ‘do not transfer to me list’. If you aren’t sure what they are asking for just put them on hold and ask someone for help.”

“Uhh what do I do if the person is on their ‘do not transfer list’?” you asked nervously, tucking a piece of hair behind ear and out of our face. You were only minutes into your new job as a secretary for Island Records. You were trying to keep your ‘first day jitters’ under wraps but Chelsea, who was training you, was running through everything so fast you couldn’t keep up. You could feel the nervous sweat start to glisten on your brow and hoping you weren’t sweating through the white blouse you wore. You were already regretting wearing your somewhat tight pencil skirt on your first day, making it hard to breathe where it hugged your waist. But you wanted to go for the classic secretary and okay you'll admit it, cliché, look on your first day as a secretary.

“You just tell them they are out of the office right now or in a meeting and send them right to voicemail. Look you can see everyone’s extensions and schedules right here,” Chelsea points nonchalantly to the calendar on the desktop in front of you as you try to scribble down notes of everything she is saying furiously.

“You’ll be fine. This job is easy as pie. I will be in meetings all day but if you need me come find me.” Chelsea waved a hand so casually in the air as she floated off down one of the many hallways of this maze of an office building.

Great. Yeah I will be sure to interrupt your meetings if I need help transferring a call. You took in a heavy sigh and started sifting through the papers on your new desk trying to mask the panic that was surely written on your face.

Grabbing the travel mug of coffee you brought with you, the cup being the size of your face, which thankfully was not accidentally left on the counter at home on your bolt out the door, you closed your eyes and took a sip trying to calm your nerves. Setting the mug down on the desk you grabbed the stack of papers next to you, the ones Chelsea left you for instructions with “what to do if” scenarios. You heard the front door chime as someone entered the lobby of the building and you immediately started to sweat, more than you already were. At that same moment the phone started ringing off the hook, making you jump out of your own skin and accidentally knock your coffee over spilling it all over your brand new desk’s contents and computer. Immediately leaping out of your chair, you grab the phone and in a panicked rushed voice saying “Island Records y/n speaking, please hold,” putting the call on hold and slamming it back down into the receiver.

“Fuck me!” you moan falling back into your chair as you frantically grab Kleenex to try to soak up the coffee dripping everywhere, trying to salvage anything you can.

Pulling you out of your own misery comes a mans voice, “I’m sorry?” You had forgotten you were not alone in the lobby of the office, adding a whole new rush of nerves and you could feel the heat rise to your cheeks.

Still dabbing up spilled coffee from your desk, your face turning 500 shades of red from embarrassment, you slowly look up to see the man in front of you. Your eyes glance up his toned body finally reaching his face that had a small smirk settled on his lips. He was a thin man but broad and muscular with the most beautiful head of dark brown curly locks you had ever seen. But what your eyes settled on past his deliciously rosy cheeks were his soft honey-like hazel eyes.

“Oh god! I am so sorry you heard me say that,” you mentally scold yourself for swearing so loud in your first hour on the job, “How can I help you?” you sincerely ask the strangely familiar face, stopping mid dab of the coffee pooling on your desk.

A sweet chuckle escaped his full lips “I think I should be asking you that!” As he lurched forward towards the Kleenex box to help you attempt to salvage what is left on your desk. Missing the tissue box by mere centimeters, his tattooed hand bumps into your already half empty coffee mug, spilling it all down the front of your white blouse and into your lap. Your eyes snapped shut as you felt whatever remained of the burning hot liquid pour out all over your body, you reached your hand down to pick up the problematic mug and set it back onto your desk hopefully once and for all.

With the most horrified look on his face your eyes both lock for a moment both of you unsure what to do next. Time stood still, a few seconds felt like hours, just the two of you alone in this agonizing moment. This excruciating embarrassing moment, but a moment nonetheless.

Feeling the coffee seep further into your clothes, your white v-neck blouse starting to stick to your chest and surely making it look like you were the newest contestant in a wet T-shirt contest. You notice his eyes dip down to take in your now more well defined curves and see his tongue dart out to wet his bottom lip ever so slightly.

Your brain tried to quickly assess what the hell had just happened in quite possibly the worst minute of your life. Trying to hold back tears over the fact that you now have to spend the rest of your first day on your new job with your newly tan, no longer white top smelling like a Starbucks barista.

“Oh shit. I am so sorry about that!” the beautiful stranger said pulling you out of your thoughts. His cheeks seemed to fill with even more color now than before. “I only meant to help stop the damage on your desk and now I ruined your clothes too,” he finished with a sad look in his eyes as he looked you up and down. Something about his eyes on you made your body temperature rise and you knew it had nothing to do with the hot coffee spilled all over you.

“Oh pfft that’s okay its no big deal, honestly” you brushed him off trying to play it cool going back to cleaning your desk you picked up papers to try to see what you could save if air-dried. Remembering your actual job in this building you shook your head to clear your mind of the past few moments “oh shoot I am sorry how can I help you again?”

“Oh right” he chuckled running his fingers through his long dark curls pushing them up and out of his face, “I have a meeting at 9:30. My name is Shawn,” as he stuck out a hand to shake yours looking at you expectantly waiting for you to return the exchange.

Hesitating to return the gesture, you assumed most of the people you interacted with in this job would not bat an eyelash at who you were, let alone introduce themselves you. Finally you returned the greeting taking his outstretched hand in yours, “Y/N”.

The most delicious smile curled on his lips as he repeated “Y/N” quietly to himself and it felt like electricity coursing through your body as you felt his warm soft touch in your hand. Getting lost in his gaze you shake your head, breaking yourself free of his trance, dropping his hand immediately missing the warmth of his touch on your skin.

“Right okay…. 9:30 meeting. Let me just take a look here” as you rifle through the papers on your desk, “I am sorry I am a such mess – besides the spilled coffee I mean- today is my first day so I don’t really know where anything is…” you trail off trying to fill the air while you frantically search your desk for the calendar.

Shawn leans on your desk, arms crossed and a smirk playing on his lips, watching you struggle to find something that will help give you a clue as to what the day’s meetings were.

“A-ha! Got it!” finally with a triumphant smile you pulled out the schedule calendar already open to today’s events you run your finger down the day looking for a Shawn, “hmm oh okay here it is 9:30 meeting for Mr. Turner with……Shawn Mendes” you say as his name slowly rolls off your tongue. Shawn. Mendes. Fuck. That’s why he looked so familiar!

“Yep, you’ve got me, Y/N” as he leans back and stands up straight, hearing your name again come from his full lips sounding like sweet honey.

Surely a new color of red was just invented for the shade your cheeks had turned as you replayed the last few minutes you’d spent with him. Wondering how you could be so dumb, how you were unable to piece together who he was – you are a secretary at a record label for cryin’ out loud.

“Okay….cool. Shawn Mendes, yeah great….um please take a seat and I will let someone know you are here,” you wave over to the empty couches to your right, offering him a seat. Not believing the sentence that just came out of your mouth. Totally normal, we got this y/n act cool. Shawn Mendes standing in front of you just like any other Monday morning.

Shawn smiles politely at you, bringing a hand up through his curls, starting towards the couches before turning back to you. “Listen I feel really bad about spilling coffee all over you. Is there something I can do to make it up to you, Y/N?” He asks with the softest eyes and biggest puppy dog look on his face.

“Oh no. I’ll be fine, thank you though.”

Walking back over to your desk closing the space between you, “Are you sure? Your white shirt is a mess… oh I know here take my shirt” he says as he starts to lift his shirt over his head, you can see just the start of his six pack abs and the start of his V taking your gaze lower on his body.

Stopping yourself from drooling and from having Shawn Mendes stripping in the lobby of your building – not that you really wanted to stop him- you rush to reach your hands out to stop his arms from lifting his shirt any further up his body. “Really! I am sure! Thank you though, I really appreciate the gesture.”

Creating space between the two of you, you hastily walk back over to your desk trying to get this conversation back onto a professional level, “I will let someone know you are here Mr. Mendes. Someone will be down shorty to take you to your meeting.” Clicking on the schedule on your desktop to check Shawn into the building, notifying Mr. Turner that Shawn was here for their meeting

“Mr. Mendes?” Shawn looked taken aback, hand on his chest acting as if you had offended him, “Don’t get formal on me now y/n, please just call me Shawn,” he said as he took a seat on one of the couches, staring at you intently from across the room with a smirk plastered on his lips.

“Right, sorry Shawn. They will be down to get you shortly,” you said with a polite tight smile. Trying to remain professional and keep whatever poise you had left after what had transpired before.

You busied yourself with your desk trying to finish cleaning up the mess that had been made. Avoiding looking in his general direction felt like a forced game that you didn’t want to be playing, wanting nothing more than to just eye him from your desk. Any time you felt brave enough to glance in his direction his gaze was burning into you and immediately made you look away. Feeling goosebumps arise on your skin just from the way his eyes bore into you.

The minutes that it took for Chelsea to come grab Shawn to escort him to his meeting felt like an eternity.

As he got up from the couch to go with Chelsea to his meeting, he strode over to you one last time.

“It was a pleasure to meet you, y/n,” the word ‘pleasure’ rolling off his tongue in a sinful way, “sorry again about your coffee. Oh and by the way, you still have someone on hold.”

“Oh shit!” You squealed reaching for the phone receiver, completely forgetting about the person you put on hold from coffee spill number one. He chuckled devilishly as he walked away enjoying getting one last panicked rise out of you.

——————————————

Shawn’s POV

Concentration was at an all time low during this meeting about a few of your upcoming shows and some PR that was planned. Your mind traveling back down to the main lobby to the secretary that had just run your emotions through the ringer.

Sinful thoughts crossed your mind during your meeting and there was little you could do about it. The way that when you had regretfully, but in a way thankfully, spilled coffee all down her front seeing the way her shirt clung to her chest, leaving little to the imagination. Trying to keep yourself calm at the thought of getting to see her hopefully without her shirt on as she lay underneath you.

The way her skin glistened as the coffee dipped down her front. Wondering if her skin would shine just the same if you had her in your shower.

The way her cheeks became flushed and rosy anytime you came within close proximity to her, wondering to yourself if those sweet full cheeks would could go a shade redder as you get her to scream your name for the first time.

The way her skin felt so soft to the touch just by a mere handshake. Almost salivating at the thought of running your hands over every possible inch of her body.

Even just the shape of her body perfectly formed in her pencil skirt showing off her well-defined curves. You could feel the blood rushing down south and yourself hardening at the fantasy of one day getting to push that skirt up her thighs and taking her right on her desk.

The way that her- “Shawn? Does that sound good to you?”

Snapping you out of your fantasy and the blood rush to your face in slight embarrassment, “Hmm? Sorry- yeah that all sounds great.”

As you tried to stay focused for the remainder of your meeting, your thoughts drifted back to Y/N every so often, trying to keep your thoughts more innocent to avoid walking out of your meeting with a hard on. You wracked your brain on how to talk to her again.

Once your meeting was finally complete, feeling like every minute in there was an hour, you made your way down on the elevator and tried your best to linger in the lobby without being too obvious. Finding new interest in whatever three month old magazine was left near the waiting area, you were carefully watching Y/N out of the corner of your eye, waiting for your moment to approach her. But it seemed like today was this was the place to be. Y/N was answering the phone that seemed to ring once every 30 seconds or directing guests once checked in to the waiting area couches, where you were patiently waiting for her. You'd never know it was her first day with how well she seemed to handle herself after this mornings coffee catastrophe. You had caught her eye a few times and exchanged flirtatious smiles back and forth. Watching her work was a show in of its own, giving your thoughts some extra fuel for later when you were home alone. Taking a break from oogling the secretary, looking at the numerous messages you'd missed from Andrew, you realized you had been meandering around the lobby of your record label for a half hour longer than you should have been just to try to talk to her. You had been so caught up in her that you were now running late for another meeting and bolted for the front door.

----------------------------------------------

Reader's POV

Shawn had been sitting in the lobby like a patient puppy waiting his turn, eagerly returning your smile any time you were able to steal a glance over at him.

You had been so busy that morning with learning the ropes of your new job and handling the steady stream of traffic that seemed to endlessly flow in and out of your front doors that you barely had a chance to offer another thought to this morning’s mishap. So Shawn reappearing and trying to nonchalantly linger in the lobby came as a surprise. At first you wondered if he was waiting for someone but as he sat there and made small talk with random guests, making no move to leave for the better part of twenty minutes you were a little dumbfounded. He cannot possibly be waiting here for me... he is Shawn Freakin' Mendes and I am no one! Shaking the thought from your mind you answered the never ending ringing phone, "Island Records, this is Y/N , how can I help you?"

A few more minutes passed and you seemed to have caught a lull in the chaos. You expectantly look up from your desk hoping to see chocolate curls waiting for you but the smile on your face drops as your eyes scan the room, realizing that he's no longer there. Ha. See. I knew it, it was all in your head. No way in hell he was waiting here for me.

Chalking this morning's events up to being an embarrassing freak accident on your first day, one story I am sure your friends will beg you to tell over and over to get a good laugh, you went about surviving the rest of your day. To be fair, you thought the day went pretty well. You only hung up a few calls, on accident of course and only managed to transfer one person that was on a 'do not transfer list', so all in all it could have gone worse.

Watching patiently as the clock hit 5pm, the most beautiful hour of the day meaning you were home free, you grabbed your bags and tried your best non-sprint but really was a sprint for the front door. Walking out the door with your attention drawn to your bag as you searched for your cell phone and headphones, your body comes to a screeching halt as it bumps into something. The something that you clumsily ran into made an "oof" sound. Immediately apologizing to whoever you just bodychecked, "Fuck my bad. Shit! I am so sorry that was totally my fault! I wasn't paying attention" you finished as you finally looked up at who you just hit, who was now emitting the most beautiful chuckle at your expense.

Shawn. Mendes. This guy again? What the actual hell. Confusion visibly running all over your face, you try to cut to the chase as to why he was reappearing in your day for the third time. "Oh, uh, hey Shawn, you probably don't remember me...Y/N, we met earlier, you might recognize me from the coffee stained look I was going for this morning," you rambled on as you gestured to your tanned outfit. Forgetting what you were trying to get at as he had put his hand on your forearm to steady you from your head on collision, feeling the warmth of his hand spread through your body like wildfire. "Did...did you forget something inside? I can try to call someone to unlock the door to get it fo-"

"No, no no," he cut you off thankfully, to save yourself from spewing nonsense for the next minute. "I actually came back to try to catch you leaving. I waited to see you before but forgot about another meeting I had."

He barely finished his sentence before you countered, "Wait. What? Why?" Taking the bewildered expression written on your face to a whole new level.

"Well I still feel bad about earlier and wanted to see if I could make it up to you.....so are you free tonight?"

"Oh, Shawn, I'm sorry," you say taken aback by his request, "I actually have dinner plans tonight, I'm going out to celebrate surviving my first day."

Watching the smile drop from his face causing a pang to strike your chest, "Right! Of course, I am sure your boyfrie-"

"Nope. No. Single. No boyfriend here," you cut him off before he can even think about finishing the word. Smooth. Fucking smooth. If ever there was a face palm moment, this was it, wishing you could rewind the past 30 seconds to avoid sounding so desperate. "But I am free tomorrow," you recover your misstep.

The smile that beamed from his beautifully full lips caused butterflies to race through your body, "I was thinking I could take you out to grab some coffee?" he smirked.

Causing a snort to involuntarily escape your mouth, "How about we stick to water since it seems coffee is too much for either of us to handle."

#plz be nice #its my first time #shawn mendes #shawn mendes imagine #fan fiction #fanfic #imagine #Shawn mendes fanfic #shawn mendes x reader #also how do you do these tags #island records #emily writing #my writing #fic #shawn #sm #shawn peter raul mendes #shawn mendes fanfiction

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smartorr14-blog · 6 years ago

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Fi Issues? You're Not the exception.

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You have a fast 3G USB modem for your pc and you wish to discuss that 3G relationship. This's certainly not like this in other aspect of the alleged STEM occupations (that's science, design, math and tech). Without explaining the obvious, real-time communication is actually important to social networking in the offline world but so far, even Internet 2.0 social media and real-time vocal and video are managed as distinct endeavors. Equipment devices, such as cams, might have the MACINTOSH deal with on a visible tag. Along with at least a pair of greater side graphic cards demanded to obtain structure fees into the 60s for current graphics-intensive labels and also the price of getting a halfway-decent monitor still in the a number of thousands, away from enthusiasts with money to melt as well as participants of the video gaming push borrowing an entire mess of equipment coming from the likes of AMD, Ultra HD is actually past the methods from the majority of customers. http://fitnesswelt-de.com/artroser-effekte-nebenwirkungen-bewertungen-meinungen-preis-wo-kaufen/ believe social stress can easily come from being actually clumsy though so both while they aren't nessecarily may be co realted. These cloud-based social media advertising and marketing resources will certainly help keep track of exactly what, where, and also how your brand name is actually being talked about online. Our experts currently have preliminary evidence that an unprotected add-on style triggers individuals to react either as well firmly or even too weakly to social relevant information.

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royallypsychotic · 3 years ago

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Balenciaga Green Purses

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junker-town · 4 years ago

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Our WNBA 2021 season preview with title predictions, MVP picks, and more

Our huge WNBA preseason roundtable includes predictions for all of the league’s big questions.

As the WNBA enters its 25th season, it feels like the league has never had more talent than it does today. It is hyper-competitive just to make a roster on each of the 12 teams. At this point, it fees like the W could add several more teams via expansion and still have plenty of star-power to go around.

The WNBA returns to home arenas this year after spending last season in the bubble wubble. The Seattle Storm enter the year as defending champions, and will be searching for their third title in four years. Storm forward Breanna Stewart is on her way to becoming one of the most accomplished players in the history of the sport, while veteran point guard Sue Bird remains a steady floor general as she enters her 18th season.

If the Storm are the favorites, there are no shortage of competitors. The Washington Mystics, Las Vegas Aces, and Chicago Sky are becoming popular picks to win it all at the end of the season.

Before the 2021 WNBA season gets underway, we asked our staff to predict how this year will go. Picks are being made by Sabreena Merchant, Sydney Umeri, Ricky O’Donnell, Brady Klopfer, Cat Ariail, Zack Ward, Eric Nemchock, and Jim Savell. For continued coverage of the WNBA all season, follow our excellent women’s basketball community Swish Appeal.

Which team will be the must-watch this year?

Cat: The Indiana Fever. Yes, the team that finished last in Swish Appeal’s preseason power rankings. However, if everything breaks right, Indy could emerge as a super-fun, young team. There’s a scenario where Kelsey Mitchell is a surefire All-Star, Teaira McCowan makes the leap many have been waiting on, Victoria Vivians strokes it from deep, Kysre Gondreszick shines like a lottery pick and vets Jantel Lavender and Danielle Robinson provide steady leadership, and just enough defense. The alternative scenario — where the Fever’s talent deficit resigns them to the WNBA cellar — is still intriguing. While I think we all want to see Tamika Catchings succeed as general manager, a disappointing season has to raise questions about the direction of the franchise. Will Indiana stand behind Catchings or make changes within the organization’s decision-making structure?

Sydney: The Las Vegas Aces. They are looking very strong this season, and they’re a team you won’t want to miss. Last season they were runner-ups to the Seattle Storm, and they didn’t even have everyone available to play. With Liz Cambage back after opting out of the 2020 season and Kelsey Plum fully recovered from her achilles injury, they will be fun to watch. They are also returning their core including, Tamera Young, Dearica Hamby, and A’ja Wilson; not to mention, they now have Chelsea Gray.

Ricky: The Chicago Sky. Chicago already had one of the most exciting teams in the league even before adding Candace Parker in free agency. Veteran point guard Courtney Vandersloot is the league’s top facilitator, Diamond DeShields feels primed for a breakout season at age-26, and Azurá Stevens is an inside-out scoring threat in the front court. The Sky have a great mix of established veterans and burgeoning young talent, and it feels like Parker could be the missing piece to tie it all together.

Jim: The New York Liberty. Sabrina Ionescu and Asia Durr playing together combined with the arrival of Natasha Howard make the Liberty quite an intriguing team. The Liberty shot 602 3-point shots last season and that should continue to be a part of their offensive gameplan. If they make more than the 27 percent they did last season, the Liberty might find themselves in the playoff hunt.

Sabreena: Any team that has Chennedy Carter, Aari McDonald, and Courtney Williams in the same backcourt is must-see for me. If anything, the fact that the Atlanta Dream lost their head coach less than two weeks before the start of the season makes them more interesting because Carter and McDonald are just going to be given the ball and asked to go to work. The Dream also have LaChina Robinson and Angel Gray on the League Pass broadcast, so they’ve got everything going for them.

Brady: The Chicago Sky. The Sky have every ingredient you want for entertainment. Candace Parker is one of the best players in league history, and still good for numerous highlights a night. Courtney Vandersloot is the best passer in the league, with an assist rate in 2020 that nearly doubled the next-best player. Diamond DeShields might be the best pure athlete in the league. Beyond that, they have dynamics that could fill up the drama, entertainment, and intrigue bars. Parker’s an all-time great, but her teams have had their fair share of off-court stories and tension in recent years. Vandersloot and her backcourt partner, Allie Quiqley, are married. Many predicted a Sky breakout last year, but they finished just 12-10. It’s easy to envision the Sky ending the regular season as title favorites, or as a disappointing middle of the pack crew. And they’ll be must-watch TV the whole way.

Zack: The Chicago Sky. Candace Parker on her own makes any team worth watching with her passion and leadership. The story of her returning to her hometown of Chicago is so compelling. She has a big personality and fit in in Hollywood, but her return to her roots has revealed a different, humbler side to her. As a player, Parker proved doubters wrong last year by making the All-WNBA First Team and winning Defensive Player of the Year after struggling with an injury in 2019. She has a chip on her shoulder to prove she can still be one of the best at age 35. And Courtney Vandersloot must have a chip on her shoulder too after all these years of being kept out of the MVP discussion because she’s a point guard. She is a unique talent as the only player in the league who can pile up assists at a prolific rate and her teaming up with Parker just makes Chicago that much more interesting.

Eric: The Atlanta Dream. Granted, Atlanta is a bit of an unknown quantity entering the season, with former head coach Nicki Collen accepting a job at Baylor University in the middle of training camp and an overstock of ball-dominant combo guards making the Dream’s potential rotation a complete enigma. It’s that rotation, however, that makes Atlanta so tantalizing: 2021 No. 3 overall pick Aari McDonald, who became a national star during Arizona’s improbable run in the NCAA Tournament, joins budding stars Chennedy Carter and Courtney Williams on a team brimming with vibrant personality. The jury’s still out on whether or not the Dream will be any good, but they’ll be League Pass favorites regardless.

Which player will be a household name by the end of the season?

Sydney: Mark my words Charli Collier will be a name to remember by the end of this season. Though it’s her rookie year, and there might be a bit of a learning curve, Collier is extremely talented. She was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2021 WNBA Draft coming out of the University of Texas as a junior. She is a center/forward with the ability to stretch defenses and knock down threes when needed, but is also a force on the glass, finishing with a combination of power and finesse around the rim.

Eric: Kysre Gondrezick. The Fever caused a stir when they drafted Gondrezick at No. 4 overall, but they clearly see something in her that they like, so it’d be surprising if she doesn’t get plenty of opportunity to carve out a spot for herself on a rebuilding Indiana team. She’s already signed a contract with Adidas - according to ESPN’s Nick DePaula, Gondrezick will be the face of Adidas Basketball moving forward - and she’s spoken at length about the importance of branding and influencing future generations. Gondrezick has yet to play a single minute of WNBA basketball, but she’s already on the fast track to widespread visibility.

Ricky: Chennedy Carter. Carter didn’t win Rookie of the Year last season (the award went to Crystal Dangerfield), but the 5’9 guard did establish herself the future face of the Atlanta Dream with a terrific all-around debut in the W. Carter is a dynamic three-point shooter, and should be freed up to work off the ball at times with the arrival of top draft pick Aari McDonald. The Dream might be in disarray after head coach Nicki Collen bolted for Baylor, but Carter will give fans something to cheer about.

Sabreena: Am I too late on Napheesa Collier? It feels like the hype train for Collier is so much softer than other big-name Connecticut prospects. She won Rookie of the Year in 2019, was second-team all-WNBA a year ago, and almost makes you forget that Maya Moore isn’t in Minnesota right now. Collier feels like she should be the biggest up-and-coming player in the W other than maybe her podcast co-host A’ja Wilson and Breanna Stewart, but Collier is damn good, and if the Lynx exceed preseason expectations, she’ll be the reason why.

Cat: Brianna Turner. In the latter half of her sophomore season, Turner served as a needed spark for the then-floundering Phoenix Mercury, with her relentless effort and energy translating into All-Defensive honors. She proved especially prolific in grabbing rebounds and swatting shots. Yet, Turner is overshadowed by the multiple starry names on this Mercury team — Diana Taurasi, Brittney Griner, Skylar Diggins-Smith and Kia Nurse. However, if Phoenix approaches their championship aspirations, expect Turner to be integral to their success. Turner also deserves more shine as an incisive voice on matters of racial justice.

Zack: Courtney Williams. Williams made a bit of a name for herself during the 2019 WNBA Finals when she was a member of the Connecticut Sun, but look for her to become even more well-known this season. She doesn’t often get talked about as one of the best players in the WNBA, but numbers suggest she had a case to be in Swish Appeal’s Top 30 players. With career-best averages of 14.6 points (2020), 7.2 rebounds (2020), 3.8 assists (2019) and 1.4 steals (2019), she deserves more respect and should put up even bigger numbers at age 27 for a Dream team that is looking for other members of its deep roster besides Tiffany Hayes and rising star Chennedy Carter to step up and give them a legit big three.

Jim: Ezi Magbegor. The 2019 first round pick of the Seattle Storm from Australia played her rookie season in 2020 and played 13 minutes per game. With Natasha Howard off to New York, there will be a hole at the center position. The young 6’4” center scored 17 points in 19 minutes in the Storm’s preseason game against the Phoenix Mercury, showing that she is ready to compete for the starting spot.

Brady: Napheesa Collier’s game isn’t quite as flashy as it is valuable, but if you like watching elite-level players play, there are few people who can hold a candle to her. She’s been under-appreciated early in her career as Minnesota tried to retool on the fly for the post-Maya Moore and Lindsay Whalen era. But I suspect the Lynx will be title contenders this year, with Collier on the short list of MVP candidates. And I expect both of those things to be true for most years for the next decade or so.

Who will lead the WNBA in scoring?

Eric: Arike Ogunbowale. Dallas may be more balanced offensively than it was last season, but the roster is still very young, and it will probably be Ogunbowale’s team until proven otherwise. She’s posted massive usage ratings thus far in her career (over 30 percent in both 2019 and 2020, according to Basketball Reference), and that was with the Wings playing at a relatively slow pace. If head coach Vicki Johnson emphasizes early offense in her first season at the helm, Ogunbowale will get that many more possessions to put the ball in the hoop.

Cat: Breanna Stewart. On first instinct, the answer is Dallas Wings’ scoring dynamo Arike Ogunbowale. Yet, the 2021 Wings have a deeper suite of scorers. While it should be expected that an improved Satou Sabally will get more touches on offense, rookies Chelsea Dungee and Dana Evans also have the potential to fill it up. In contrast, Breanna Stewart will have to assume a bigger scoring burden on a retooled Seattle Storm squad that features a supporting cast of younger, still-unproven players and past-their-prime vets. With Jewell Loyd as the only other consistent bucket getter on the Storm, Stewie should turn in many big scoring nights.

Ricky: Arike Ogunbowale. Ogunbowale led the WNBA in scoring at 22.8 points per game inside the bubble last season, and she will be expected to carry the Dallas Wings again this year. While Ogunbowale put up big numbers, her scoring efficiency — 41.2 percent from the field, 33.6 percent from three — leaves her plenty of room for improvement going into this season.

Sabreena: Arike seems like the obvious pick, but I’m going to go with DeWanna Bonner. She was third in scoring last season, but now has a year of playing in Curt Miller’s system under her belt. Bonner will have more offensive responsibility without Alyssa Thomas available and potentially more space to work with now that Jonquel Jones is back, too. Conditions seem ripe for the league’s 19th-leading scorer of all-time to grab her first scoring title.

Brady: Breanna Stewart. Full disclosure: Ogunbowale should be the odds-on favorite, but Stewart has a very strong case after finishing third a year ago in her first season back after tearing her Achilles. On what figures to be a bad team with a lot of rookies to develop, it wouldn’t be a shock if Ogunbowale sees a slight decrease in minutes and role, as the Wings try and build up her teammates so they can be competitive in 2022. Stewart, on the other hand, will be given the key to the Storm’s car, and also their other car, as well as their courtesy car and golf cart.

Zack: Breanna Stewart. She has the edge over Ogunbowale with her ability to post-up and score as a frontcourt player as well as a guard-like perimeter player. Both are incredibly gifted with stellar moves and this is a close call. But expect 2021 to be the year of Stewie and expect that to include the scoring title.

Sydney: Arike Ogunbowale. She was the leading scorer last season, and it doesn’t look like anyone will stand in her way and slow her down anytime soon, not even the new additions to the Dallas Wings roster. She is very efficient and ultimately a guard that can accurately read defenses, take advantage of missteps by defenders and finish at a high percentage whether she’s slashing to the rim, pulling up in the lane, or from beyond the arch.

Jim: Breanna Stewart. The Storm’s roster has changed quite a bit from last season and the other top five scorers from last season (Arike Ogunbowale, A’ja Wilson, DeWanna Bonner, and Diana Taurasi) will have more scoring options. Stewart was coming off of an Achilles injury in 2020 and still managed to finish fourth in scoring. Look for her to be a prime number one option for the Storm.

Who will be MVP?

Sabreena: WNBA voters have a very clear “best player on best team” pattern when it comes to awarding the MVP. Not since 2015 has the MVP come from a team that wasn’t the No. 1 seed, and even then, Elena Delle Donne played for the second-seeded Sky. This really might come down to who has the best record, and I think that will be the Storm, who are projected to clear the field by three games by FiveThirtyEight. That means Breanna Stewart should be the MVP for the second time in her career. It’s already been three weeks since Stewart added a trophy to her case as the 2021 EuroLeague Final Four MVP, so it’s past time she added another one, right?

Eric: Candace Parker. Let’s be honest: MVP is largely a narrative-driven award. Parker may not be as individually dominant as Stewart, Delle Donne, Wilson and other popular MVP picks at this point in her career, but she proved in 2020 that she still has plenty left to contribute to winning basketball. Parker brings defense, rebounding, playmaking and experience to a Chicago team that needed every bit of her diverse skillset; if the Sky take the leap many are expecting of them and finish near the top of the WNBA standings, Parker will likely have a compelling case for MVP.

Jim: I think it comes down to Breanna Stewart and Candace Parker. Stewart will have the stats and, although I think the Storm are generally weaker as a team than they have been recently, the Storm will be near the top of the standings. Eric’s argument about the award being narrative-driven is compelling. If the Sky finish third or better and Parker remains healthy, look for Parker to take the award.

Ricky: Breanna Stewart. Stewart might be on track to become women’s basketball’s GOAT by the time she retires. Still just 26 years old, Stewart is already incredibly accomplished and seems to be firmly in her prime. She successfully recovered from a torn Achilles last year, and immediately led the Storm to a WNBA championship in the bubble. Elena Delle Donne and A’ja Wilson will push her, but Stewart is still the best player alive.

Sydney: Candace Parker. She’s in her hometown, with a new team and a new system, but I feel like this will be a dominant year for her. Thirty-five years old and having spent the past 13 seasons in LA, her change to Chicago shocked the basketball world. I feel like Parker, though a veteran, will continue to amaze us on her new team with many dominant MVP caliber performances. I think she’ll remind us that the young players are great, but even as a veteran she’s still one of the best in the game.

Brady: Breanna Stewart. Stewart is the best player alive, on a team with a solid chance of being the best in the league. That’s a pretty strong formula. Reigning MVP A’ja Wilson could make a push, but her usage might drop a little with Liz Cambage’s return. Elena Delle Donne has the skills to win, but is already hampered by back injuries. Others like Candace Parker, Napheesa Collier, Nneka Ogwumike, Brittney Griner, and Jonquel Jones all have cases, but also obstacles. Stewie has the most straightforward path while, again, already being the best player in the world.

Cat: Napheesa Collier. With A’ja Wilson and Liz Cambage stealing votes from each other on the Las Vegas Aces, Breanna Stewart on a Seattle Storms team that likely will not match last season’s heights and the Washington Mystics’ Elena Delle Donne working her way back from offseason back surgery, there is a potential MVP void. As the Minnesota Lynx are poised to be near the top of the standings, Napheesa Collier, who finished fifth on last season’s MVP ballot, is a strong candidate to fill it. Even as the Lynx have bolstered their roster, it is Collier, with her ability to credibly play three positions on both ends of the floor, who unlocks the versatility that makes the Lynx a dangerous, championship-caliber team. Collier also should post the raw numbers and impact metrics requisite of an MVP.

Zack: Breanna Stewart. There really couldn’t be a more perfect storm for Breanna Stewart right now. She’s a little quicker than Elena Delle Donne, who is arguably the second-best player in the world, and more youthful at age 26. She eliminated any thoughts that the Achilles injury in 2019 would lower her level of play by averaging 19.7 points and 8.3 rebounds last year en route to a second-place finish in MVP voting. Expect her to win the award for the second time this year.

Let’s talk defense. Which team will finish No. 1 in defensive efficiency? Who will win Defensive Player of the Year?

Ricky: A’ja Wilson for DPOY. Aces finish with the top defense. Wilson won MVP last season, and is unquestionably one of the top overall talents in the league. The Aces’ defense only finished behind the Storm last year, and they’re getting Liz Cambage back this season. All signs are pointing to the Aces being a powerhouse, and their size inside is going to be a big part of a dominant defense.

Sabreena: At the risk of repeating everything Ricky just said, the Aces will have the best defense in the league. They have the bones of the defense that finished atop the league in 2019, and getting Liz Cambage back in place of Carolyn Swords/Emma Cannon/whatever was happening at the 5 last year should help them get back from second place to that perch. As for defensive player of the year, let’s just say it will go to someone who will also appear on one of the league’s all-defense teams.

Brady: There are a million and one good options for DPOY, but I’m choosing Natasha Howard. The last time Howard wasn’t fighting for minutes and spotlight next to Breanna Stewart, she almost unanimously won DPOY. She’ll have a tall task righting a Liberty defense that was last in the league a year ago, but if she can, she’ll be in pole position for the award. As for team defense, I’m going with the Lynx. Minnesota wasn’t a good defensive team last year, but they were lacking Sylvia Fowles for all but seven games. With a hopefully healthy Fowles, the additions of Kayla McBride and Aerial Powers, and a year of growth from Napheesa Collier, they could be elite on that end of the court. Most Cheryl Reeve teams are.

Cat: Sylvia Fowles. In her brief time on the court last season, the longtime Minnesota Lynx stalwart flashed DOY form. This season, with less of a burden on offense, Fowles should be able to devote her energies to anchoring Minnesota’s defense. In 2020, without Fowles, the Lynx’s defensive rating was nearly seven points worse than the league leader, a departure from season after season of being within two points of the league’s best defense, if not at the top. With a healthy Fowles, the Lynx should be back in their more familiar defensive stratosphere, and Big Syl might have earned more hardware.

Zack: Elizabeth Williams best defensive player. Lynx best defensive team. To me, Williams was the second-best defensive player in the league last year after Alyssa Thomas, who will miss all of 2021 with a torn Achilles. Thomas made more disruptive plays, but Williams provided sound fundamental defense on a consistent basis. She also averaged 1.4 blocks per game. The Lynx return nine-time All-Defensive player and three-time Defensive Player of the Year Sylvia Fowles from a calf injury to a team that was fifth in the league in defensive rating last year. The trio of Fowles, Napheesa Collier and Damiris Dantas in the frontcourt is formidable defensively and I’ll give it the edge over the backcourt duo of Briann January and Jasmine Thomas in Connecticut.

Eric: The Las Vegas Aces are looking pretty tough defensively. Losing Angel McCoughtry to a knee injury is a big hit for their perimeter defense, but they should remain an excellent defensive rebounding team, and if they lead the WNBA in opponents’ free throw rate by as wide of a margin as they did in 2020, their overall defensive efficiency will once again be excellent. As far as Defensive Player of the Year, I think this is Napheesa Collier’s year to be recognized; her versatility and basketball IQ on the defensive end of the floor are unparalleled, and if Sylvia Fowles can stay healthy enough to contribute her usual stout interior defense, Collier will have all the room she needs to wreak havoc elsewhere.

Jim: I like the Minnesota Lynx here with Napheesa Collier to take the Defensive Player of the Year award. The Lynx were fifth last season and I expect the teams who finished in front of them to regress defensively based on roster changes and injuries. Minnesota plays great team defense and Collier is a versatile defender and should have the statistical argument to back it up by the end of the season.

Give me one bold WNBA prediction

Brady: Is it bold to say that Sabrina Ionescu will be one of the best players in the W? After being one of the most highly-touted prospects in league history a year ago, Ionescu struggled with ankle injuries and played just three games. In essence, she’s still a rookie, but she won’t play like one. I’ll say she makes an All-WNBA team.

Cat: The Atlanta Dream will earn a top-five playoff seed. It’s been a good year for interim head coaches in the ATL. (Shout out Nate McMillan!) Despite all of the unexpected turnover within the Dream organization, interim head coach Mike Petersen and lead assistant coach Darius Taylor inherit a team with a ton of talent. Last season’s oft-injured core of Chennedy Carter, Courtney Williams, Elizabeth Williams, Monique Billings and Shekinna Stricklen will welcome back Tiffany Hayes, with No. 3 draft pick Aari McDonald and free agents Cheynne Parker, Odyssey Sims and Tianna Hawkins highlighting the new arrivals. If Petersen and Taylor can get all these unfamiliar faces to coalesce into a team, the Dream should be in the middle of the playoff picture.

Eric: Teaira McCowan will win Most Improved Player. Though the criteria for this award aren’t exactly clear, the young Fever center seems like a good candidate to earn it; she struggled to stay on the floor in 2020, but her per-minute stats remained impressive, and with Indiana overhauling its frontcourt in free agency, McCowan seems to be in line for more minutes and a consistent starting role. If she improves her defensive mechanics enough to stay in the good graces of head coach Marianne Stanley, McCowan could realistically average a double-double, which would give her a good argument for Most Improved honors.

Zack: Dallas and New York make the playoffs. Charli Collier, Awak Kuier, Chelsea Dungee and Dana Evans will all make impacts as rookies with Collier and Kuier becoming stars. It’s not unprecedented in the WNBA for top two draft picks to do so in their first seasons. Arike Ogunbowale and Satou Sabally will also play well and Dallas won’t have any weak links. Marina Mabrey will remain an X factor. Meanwhile the Liberty will see a big three form with Natasha Howard, Betnijah Laney and a Sabrina Ionescu who lives up to expectations. Howard will be in contention for an All-WNBA spot and Ionescu’s distributing abilities will make the Liberty offense run smoothly so that they are able to bounce back from a 2-20 campaign.

Sabreena: The Mystics fall off. The expectation seems to be that Washington will be right back in the contending class now that all of the players who opted out in 2020 are back, but I don’t think it’ll be that easy. Elena Delle Donne won’t be ready to start the season, Emma Meesseman won’t be coming until after the Olympic break at the earliest, and Alysha Clark won’t suit up at all. Tina Charles is a damn good consolation prize with all those players at less than full strength, and Natasha Cloud has shown the ability to lead a championship team, but there’s enough uncertainty that I don’t think the Mystics can be penciled in alongside the Storm, Aces, Sky, or even the Lynx depending on when Collier gets back.

Jim: The Indiana Fever finally make the playoff leap. The Fever have drafted some of the best young talent to leave college over the last few years. However, that potential has not translated to success on the court, averaging just 8.5 wins over the last four seasons. As head coach Marianne Stanley enters her second season, look for the Fever to be much improved and fighting for spot in the playoffs.

Ricky: Dallas makes the playoffs. The Wings have missed the postseason each of the last two seasons, but they’re too talented to do it again. Dallas has one of the league’s top scorers in Arike Ogunbowale, while 6’4 forward Satou Sabally could turn into a star in her second season. Dallas also had three of the first five picks in the 2021 draft, adding Charli Collier and Awak Kuier to the front court, and Chelsea Dungee to the backcourt. They’re ready to crash the playoffs.

Sydney: The Atlanta Dream will make the playoffs. This is definitely a bold prediction considering that the team is in flux. They are under new ownership, have an interim head coach since Nicki Collen took the head coaching job for Baylor women’s basketball 11 days before the start of the season. The road to the start of the season hasn’t been a straight shot for the Dream, and yet I feel like this team has the heart to do what most people think they can’t. From Chennedy Carter to Aari McDonald, Elizabeth Williams, and the whole squad, I think there’s a chance for them to make the postseason despite their circumstances.

What’s your Finals prediction?

Sabreena: Until it happens, I can’t see the Storm being beaten. They have Stewie, and that’s a better starting point than anyone else. Here’s hoping they get to play the Aces in a rematch of both teams at full strength.

Eric: Mystics over Aces. Washington may struggle out of the gate with Elena Delle Donne recovering from a back injury and Emma Meesseman competing internationally with Belgium, but if both of those players are back in the fold by the time the playoffs roll around, the Mystics will be balanced, skilled and experienced. The contrasting offensive philosophies and amount of star power would make this a tremendous series to watch, and assuming both teams will be at their strongest, I think Washington will have the firepower to win it all.

Sydney: The Aces win it all. I know, we haven’t seen that happen before, especially since this franchise is just four years old, but their talent cannot be denied. It’s not to say that other teams aren’t talented, but I can see the Aces getting hot late in the season and being hard to cool down as long as they stay healthy.

Ricky: Storm over Sky. Seattle is the betting favorite for a reason. The Storm have won the title two of the last three years, and will be going for back-to-back championships for the first time in franchise history. Despite a couple questionable offseason moves, this is still a stacked roster led by Stewie, the best player alive. They remain the team to beat.

Cat: Mystics over Aces. The Washington Mystics may not finish with the league’s best record during the regular season, but, as long as Emma Messeman returns for the second half of the season and Elena Delle Donne remains healthy, DC has the ingredients needed to survive what promises to be a hyper-competitive championship chase and claim a second trophy in three seasons. With a do-it-all superstar in EDD flanked by numerous “stars in the role” with playoff experience — headlined by Messeman, Tina Charles, Natasha Cloud and Ariel Atkins — Washington has the intangibles characteristic of title-winning teams.

Brady: Storm over Lynx. I can see a path to the Finals for eight teams, which is part of what makes this league so fun. But the Storm have the strongest case, and the most Breanna Stewarts on their team, so I give them the nod to repeat. Choosing an opponent is harder, but I love the construction of Minnesota’s club. The pieces fit together seamlessly, there’s talent at every position, and they’ve got a budding superstar in Napheesa Collier. They’re deep and experienced, and led by an all-time great coach with plenty of postseason experience.

Zack: Aces over Mystics. Despite Angel McCoughtry being out for the season with a torn ACL and a torn meniscus, the Aces are still the most talented team in the league. The Mystics will prove doubters wrong by being a Top 2 team, but the Aces will have too much firepower with A’ja Wilson, Liz Cambage and Chelsea Gray in the Finals.

Jim: Aces over Lynx. With Liz Cambage back, the season-ending injury to McCoughtry can be weathered. Additionally, the rest of the Aces team has improved after making the WNBA Finals last season. After getting swept, look for the Aces to be on a mission. I like the Lynx to make a big jump this season. The Storm, Mystics, and Sky will be on the cusp but I like the defense of Minnesota to carry them to the finals but come up short to Las Vegas.

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miki-agrawal · 4 years ago

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Is the World Ready for Miki Agrawal and Her Next Big Idea?

Originally Published on Glamour.com By Eliza Brooke On April 4, 2019

She wants to talk about poop — if we all could just forget what happened when she tried to change the world with period underwear.

In late January the entrepreneur Miki Agrawal held a launch event for her book, Disrupt-Her, at The Assemblage, the latest coworking-slash-coliving space in Lower Manhattan. The room was decorated with wall rugs and cacti; Spanish moss descended around a nonalcoholic bar. Agrawal sat on a low stage with Lauren Zander, her life coach, and the stylist Stacy London, who was serving as interviewer for the evening. A crowd including Assemblage members and Agrawal’s friends and fans perched on couches, armchairs, and floor pillows, sipping water and nibbling on vegan snacks while the three women talked.

“I want to talk about what happened with Thinx,” London said, “because I think that that was an absolute, completely life-changing moment for you, and really worth discussing because we always talk about success and failure, which for me are words that don’t make a whole lot of sense. It’s all experience. So how do we use experience to our advantage, when it feels like we have been brought to our knees?”

Agrawal founded the period underwear brand Thinx in 2014, and as the company’s profile rose, she became a well-known figure on the start-up circuit. Suddenly, in March 2017, Jezebel reported that Agrawal had stepped down as CEO after several employees quit. Days later, Racked quoted, anonymously, employees who described the company as a volatile work environment with poor compensation and benefits; sources said that Agrawal pitted staffers against one another and implied that they were ungrateful for seeking higher pay. Then The Cut reported that Chelsea Leibow, Thinx’s former head of PR, had filed a sexual harassment complaint against Agrawal, alleging that Agrawal routinely made comments about Leibow’s breasts and touched them without her consent. It was a hard turn left for a start-up with a progressive, feminist image.

Miki Agrawal, photographed at her home Michelle Rose Sulcov

Agrawal with her son, Hiro Michelle Rose Sulcov

Speaking to The Cut at the time, Agrawal called Leibow’s accusations “baseless” and denied that she had touched her breasts; a Thinx spokesperson also said in a statement that the company took the allegations “very seriously” and that “the company commissioned an investigation that concluded the allegations had no legal merit” and declined to comment further. Agrawal also put out a Medium post characterizing Thinx’s HR issues as problems that many fast-growing start-ups face. Forbes reported the sexual harassment claim was withdrawn after a private settlement.

Agrawal didn’t mention Thinx by name when she answered London’s question at The Assemblage. In fact, she didn’t use the word once in the hour-plus she spent onstage that night. “There were a few people that needed to be restructured out that were kind of wearing the feminist T-shirts and the vagina necklaces but were singing a different tune, culturally, for the business,” Agrawal said, noting that when she did finally restructure, “it was just twisted out of context, and you know, it was one of the darkest times of my life.”

If this sounds like a vague description of events, it is. For legal reasons, Agrawal says, she can’t say anything about her time at Thinx, her work there, or her employees. I reached out to seven former employees; only two agreed to talk about their tenure at Thinx, and even then requested anonymity. This makes writing a profile of Agrawal challenging, and reading one potentially unsatisfying: Two years after the fact, the Thinx allegations remain a major piece of her public image and business backstory, but if you want the details of what really happened, there’s a blank space.

We’re left to fill in some of the void with reports from that time period. In the spring of 2017, the critique of Agrawal was swift and widespread. Her case seemed like an isolated incident. It predated a rush of workplace misconduct accusations; Harvey Weinstein had just wrapped what we didn’t know would be his final awards season. This was before pundits learned to parse the nuances of “bad behavior” and before scores of famous men issued their careful, vague apologies. As a culture we’re now figuring out what the rehabilitation of a disgraced public figure can and should look like. This is no easy process, and as Agrawal’s case shows, it doesn’t always come with a clear, public resolution.

At The Assemblage, Agrawal described how she got through those dark days, which took place when she was five months pregnant. She remembered crying “all the time” and calling Zander multiple times a day. She said the experience stretched her emotional capacity, and in that, she found gratitude. “I get to feel the depths of betrayal, the depths of sadness, the depths of pain, which only will then accentuate the heights of joy and the height of wow-ness in life,” she said. And it fed her book, Disrupt-Her: “All of that negative shit that I inhaled, that was so painful, that I wanted to just fight back so badly; instead I just pushed it down and put it into this book.”

Disrupt-Her spans the professional and personal, and instructs readers on how to question all manner of entrenched societal conventions, block out the haters, and fight gendered norms dictated by the patriarchy and sometimes reinforced by other women. In it Agrawal talks a lot about transmuting negative energy into positive action, but her underlying principle is this: If you’re a rule-breaking woman in the world, people will try to take you down.

In the book’s introduction, there’s a handwritten message that prompts readers to “press here” on a drawing of a bull’s-eye — “to eliminate all self-judgment + judgment of others.” Were this any other self-help guide, you might touch a finger to the button, earnestly or feeling a little silly, and move on. In the context of this particular book, the request to avoid judgment seems pointed, because many people are likely to go into it with preconceived notions about Agrawal — good and bad.

Agrawal has always positioned herself as someone in the business of taboo-breaking, and that paid off with Thinx: The brand came to many people’s attention when its ads, which mentioned periods explicitly and used photos of grapefruit halves as an artistic stand-in for vaginas, were initially deemed too suggestive for the New York City subway. Thinx effectively put period underwear on the map, and Agrawal became known as an outspoken, successful woman in the overwhelmingly male start-up world, albeit one who very much fit the mold of a Burning Man–going tech executive. (A key difference: While there she posted photos on Instagram of herself pumping breast milk while out and about, writing that she had given it to other attendees to drink.) Like so many entrepreneurs, Agrawal dresses distinctively. Her style identifier is a tall, wide-brimmed hat that adds to her small stature. She talks fast, in an energetic, almost muscular way, occasionally smacking a fist into her palm for emphasis. When she’s onstage at events and conferences, she gets laughs.

It turns out operating start-ups in spaces that, in her words, “make people uncomfortable,” is good business. She opened a gluten-free pizza restaurant called Wild in 2005, at a time when gluten-free food wasn’t as trendy as it has become, and it now has three locations in New York and Guatemala. Thinx came in 2014, and a pee-proof underwear line called Icon followed in 2015; by 2017 the CEO that replaced Agrawal reported that the company (which oversees both brands) was doing $50 million in annual revenue. As chief creative officer of Tushy, a company that makes bidet attachments, Agrawal now has her sights on changing how we poop. The brand is projecting triple-digit sales growth for 2019, with annual revenue under $20 million and, according to LinkedIn, a staff of 11.

“Over these last 15 years, so many people were like, ‘No one’s going to buy your products.’ ‘No one’s going to eat gluten-free pizza — it probably tastes like shit.’ ‘No one’s going to bleed in their underwear,’” Agrawal said at the book launch. “It took a long time to get investment in all of the business ideas, and it turns out that society was wrong. People did want to try these things.”

In fact, society is wrong about a lot more than just “periods, pee, poop, and pizza,” Agrawal said, drawing laughter from the audience. “This generation and the next is not interested in doing the things that people did 100 years ago. Not interested.” To that point, each chapter of Disrupt-Her names a common way of thinking, then explains where it came from in order to present an alternative. For the notion that “failure is embarrassing,” for instance, readers are instructed to “replace the word failure with revelation.”

Disrupt-Her isn’t billed as a memoir, and much of it focuses on universal topics like the importance of investing one’s money, cultivating a partner’s best qualities, and decluttering one’s home. It is a rebirth, in a sense: Before its launch Agrawal released a video-poem that begins with her crawling from a bleeding animated vagina. (A hat is conveniently waiting nearby; she puts it on.) While the public may view it as a comeback, the timeline isn’t so linear: Agrawal founded Tushy two years after she launched Thinx, then hired leadership to run it while she focused on the period-underwear brand; when she left Thinx, she seamlessly transitioned over to Tushy. If Disrupt-Her answers any question about Agrawal, it’s how she wants to present herself to the world after being accused of abusive behavior in the workplace. Less contrition, more ideology.

In her emphasis on transforming anger, betrayal, and pain into empathy and gratitude, Agrawal performs an amazing alchemical act. The book creates a space in which she’s able to comment on the bad publicity — effectively getting the last word — and land on higher ground. This puts those members of the public who are reckoning with how to regard her, post-Thinx, in the difficult position of arguing against positivity, against personal growth, if they question her at all.

Someone who worked with Agrawal at the time, who agreed to talk only on the condition of anonymity, says that Agrawal knows the value of building her personal brand through this kind of storytelling. Publishing a new book in the aftermath of the Thinx allegations reinforces a narrative in which, the former staffer says, “She’s the hero.”

In February I visited Agrawal at her home in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, a sleek space filled with colorful woven rugs and air plants. During our interview, her husband, Andrew Horn, popped in and out of the room on his way to and from errands. Their 20-month-old son, Hiro, occasionally toddled into the conversation, cheerfully making a grab at a water glass or one of the cell phones recording the conversation.

Agrawal wrote Disrupt-Her in the two and a half months following Hiro’s birth in July 2017. Laid up in bed healing from her C-section, she wrote between feedings and while the baby was asleep. “I had so many thoughts around the culture of complaining, takedown culture, feminism, patriarchy, fake feminists, people who wear the feminist T-shirts and the vagina necklaces but are really mean girls on the inside,” Agrawal says. These topics appear in the book, in chapters that deal with woman-on-woman hate and gossipy media coverage — the products, Agrawal writes, of scarcity mind-sets and a news business that rewards clickbait.

Agrawal says she believes in creating a culture that is progressive and supportive of people being themselves — but that doesn’t mean lowering her standards. “I demand excellence. I do,” Agrawal says. “Shouldn’t you demand it for yourself? And if I’m going to bring it out of you, that’s a good thing. If that sometimes requires tough love, like, ‘Hey, I asked for that three times, come on, you’ve got this.’ Then you go back and tell everyone, ‘She’s yelling at me!’ Like, is that yelling or just being like, ‘Come on, you’re better than this!’?”

In her book Agrawal writes that she learned to “constructively look at where I actually did go wrong as a leader and how I can improve.” When I asked what those areas of personal betterment were, she said that she had to become more cautious about who she surrounds herself with. As a more experienced boss (Agrawal is now 40), “I realized that, wow, I do shoot from the hip, and I just say, ‘Oh, you love my idea? Come work with me.’” At Tushy she’s looked for people with a lot of experience in the workforce.

“I spent seven months, myself, hiring my CEO. I spent all of my time calling everyone’s references,” says Agrawal. “I looked at everyone’s social media accounts…. I looked at people’s profiles, I looked at what they wrote, I looked at how they said it — if they sounded snarky or mean-girl-style, no. They had to be bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, loved life, came with a big smile, optimistic.”

While Disrupt-Her bolsters Agrawal’s public image as someone who’s overcome adversity, many of the professional changes that Agrawal has made since moving over to Tushy seem to have to do with protecting herself against a repeat of the Thinx affair. Being a consummate “Disrupt-Her,” she still lives her life out loud, but when it comes to Tushy’s internal operations, it seems she has created boundaries that help her feel safe. Agrawal no longer wants the sticky job of managing team dynamics, so she is Tushy’s chief creative officer, not its CEO: That’s Jason Ojalvo, who spent nearly a decade at Amazon-owned Audible before joining Tushy. Agrawal works from home, sitting at her long kitchen table, and staffers will drop by for meetings. Socially, she keeps a distance between herself and her employees.

“With my team at Tushy, it’s a relationship of respect,” Agrawal says. Earlier in her career “I thought, We’re all friends, we’re all doing this together. Then all of a sudden you have to make hard calls,” she says. It’s part of the complicated work of being a manager — a lesson she learned the hard way. “I’m just like, OK, clearly I get too connected with my team or I get too trusting, and I’m just — I’m definitely not going to do that again.”

Not being a CEO also means that she has more time for the creative marketing work she loves best, Agrawal says. When I ask Ojalvo about Agrawal’s leadership style, he touts her exuberance. “We have really complementary skill sets. Miki is great at getting everyone excited about her creative ideas. Her passion for our products, our mission, and the PR stunts we do is infectious,” Ojalvo writes in an email. “I can make those all a reality by growing and managing the team executing all of it, facilitating communication among the team, and making sure we have the outside funding and/or profit to execute on our dreams — but Miki always brings the enthusiasm and excitement to the next level.”

Agrawal’s creativity is one reason Ojalvo joined Tushy; he says he was similarly motivated by its product and accessible price point ($69 for the bidet attachment), its potential to change Americans’ hygiene habits, and, more jokingly, the opportunity to talk about poop all day (“My inner 14-year-old is living the dream,” he says). At the moment Agrawal is organizing a “funeral for a tree,” a cheeky means of talking about the number of trees that get cut down every year to make toilet paper (and that could be saved by her bidet attachment). “That’s going to be one of our biggest press events of the year, I just know it,” she says.

Agrawal has a complicated relationship with the media. She has deftly used it to raise her companies’ profiles and her own, and embraced stories like those about the Thinx subway ad controversy that cemented her products in people’s minds. The former staffer, who worked with her at the time of the allegations, recalls Agrawal placing a heavy emphasis on using the media to fuel growth. “It became clear to me that there was an increasing dependence on finding the next buzzy thing,” she says. The employee wished Agrawal would have focused more on growing the company than press opportunities.

But Agrawal could at times be critical of the press, even before the allegations of March 2017. After The Cut published an early profile about her, quoting her about how she started relating to being a feminist only when she launched Thinx, she put out a Medium post titled “An Open Letter to Respectfully Quit Telling Me How to ‘Do Feminism’ (and to just support one another, please!).”

In her book Agrawal takes aim at journalists chasing after “inflamed, exaggerated headlines” and writes about being interviewed by a reporter who was “almost licking her lips, like an animal about to get a big, bloody feast.” (Below this there’s a drawing, done by the author, of a wolf licking its chops.) As a reporter working on a profile of Agrawal, it’s hard not to think about this. It’s also impossible not to see a parallel with the current American president’s relationship to the press, a whirlpool of interdependence and combativeness that plays out every day on Twitter and TV.

During her book event at The Assemblage, Agrawal talked about a few of the mental coping tactics that Zander has taught her. One was pattern interruption: When a bad thought comes into your mind and threatens to fester there, you literally change position, stand up, or walk around. She turned this into a game at a recent press dinner.

“I had literally 13 of the top press at my house last Wednesday, and it was the first time that I had met with all the press, post–all the shit that went down a year and a half ago, and I was like, ‘Ha-ha-ha, in my lair, let’s do this,’” Agrawal told the audience, adopting a faux-evil voice.

“It was a 13-course disruptive dinner, and we had them play all these games,” she continued. “Like, dance like you’re three years old! Imagine the New York Times person dancing like she’s three years old.”

I attended the dinner, and that may sound like more of an exercise in humiliation than it was. The email invitation had instructed us to dress in our silliest outfits, which the reporters and editors in attendance did with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Agrawal had on a glittering hat, a bright pink wig, and a gauzy white cape that she’d worn at her wedding. I wore a blue tie-dye shirt. Each course of the meal and its corresponding discussion or activity was based on a lesson from the book, and dancing like children was chapter one: “You can still live in a childlike state of curiosity, playfulness, and awe and be a responsible adult, on and off the job,” Agrawal writes.

Agrawal isn’t afraid to dance. She isn’t afraid to talk about periods and breastfeeding and bowel movements. To tell you that what you think you know about covering and cleaning your ass is woefully misguided.

I am not a performer, and inventing goofy dance moves in front of my peers — or worse, dancing “sensually,” as we were later encouraged to do — felt awkward and embarrassing. But it was effective programming on Agrawal’s part. You cannot argue against this kind of activity, even as you internally debate its value. To not participate, or to participate with one eye on the clock, is to admit that you’re rigid and hemmed in by your self-consciousness, that you’re choosing to bind yourself to the societal conventions you’re supposed to be dismantling. Sooner or later you’ll have to commit wholeheartedly to finding your childlike sense of play and trying something new, because your rationalizing doesn’t matter, and the only way to relieve yourself of the agony of resisting is to give in.

Eliza Brooke is a freelance reporter. She lives in Brooklyn.

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wineanddinosaur · 4 years ago

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Next Round: Leaving NYC for a Small Town With Restaurateur Adam Dunn

On this episode of the “Next Round” host Adam Teeter chats with Adam Dunn, owner of The Pheasant on Cape Cod, Mass. The Pheasant is a coastal farm-to-table restaurant set inside a historic farmhouse. Dunn details his life before he became a restaurateur — working in the music industry and then for Greenpoint Fish and Lobster. The latter project served as the catalyst for his eventual relocation to Cape Cod.

Dunn explains how relocating to a small town from a big city certainly has its pros and cons. Tune in to hear Dunn explain how he continues to navigate that journey — especially during the ongoing pandemic.

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Adam Teeter: From Brooklyn, New York, I’m Adam Teeter, and this is a “VinePair Podcast” conversation. We’re bringing you these conversations as additions to our regular special podcast to give you a better idea of what’s going on in the industry during the Covid-19 crisis. This week I’m really lucky to be talking to Adam Dunn, owner of The Pheasant in Cape Cod. Adam, what’s going on?

Adam Dunn: Not much. Enjoying a beautifully sunny day here on Cape Cod.

A: Lovely. I don’t think I’ve interviewed another Adam before, so this is going to be fun. Tell me about The Pheasant and your background, because I know you as the owner of a really amazing restaurant in Brooklyn. Can you take me through your career so we can get a chance to know who you are and then a little bit about The Pheasant?

D: Sure. My background was in the music industry and entertainment originally. Interestingly enough, I was in college and was booking bands, which I knew that’s all I wanted to do. I moved to New York, started working at a bunch of music venues and live music. I thought that was going to be my career for a very long time. Late mornings, late nights. Go to work at 1 p.m., get home at 5 a.m. That kind of thing.

A: You were at Brooklyn Bowl, right?

D: Yeah, I did Pianos out of college. Then, I moved from there to Brooklyn Bowl for a number of years. On the side, I got really interested in food and where my food comes from, sustainability. I didn’t eat meat for 13 years in high school and college. Then, I started playing sports in college, and I was eating a ton of seafood. I knew nothing about where my fish comes from. It seems hypocritical to be very concerned about meat and know nothing about seafood, so I started learning about seafood. Growing up, I came to Cape Cod every summer as a kid and was used to being around seafood. I was living in Williamsburg at the time and there was nowhere to get local seafood or any quality seafood for that matter. This is before Whole Foods and before everything else came in. I had to go to Chelsea Market to get high-quality fish. That is a three-hour round trip, at least. This is crazy. Williamsburg being the food mecca as it is or was, it just seemed crazy. There was a local Italian market that was OK, but you go in, ask the guy where’s that piece of fish from? He’d look at a tag and say it’s imported. That’s all he could tell you. I knew there’s got to be something more to this, somebody’s got to do something. I had this idea that there should be a place where you can get local fish and know where it comes from, and there’s a little counter of chowder or lobster rolls, fish sandwiches. I knew nothing about fish or where to get fish or how to source it. In my music industry days, I had worked with a guy who had mentioned at some point during our conversations that his family had a seafood business. Fast-forward many years later, I know one person who mentioned knowing something about seafood. I bumped into him at a holiday party and said, “we got to talk. I got this crazy idea.” He said his family was one of the largest and oldest seafood wholesalers in New England. They’ve been around for about 130 years in Boston wholesale. This wasn’t a little seafood thing, this is a big-time major seafood distributor. He said you have a concept, I can source us probably the best fish in New York, if not the best fish in the country. We said, “let’s see where this goes.” We started on the side. We’d rent out the backyard of a bar out in Greenpoint or Williamsburg. We throw a party and promote it like a concert. We make fliers, make Instagram accounts, and Facebook events. We branded the hell out of it. Got a friend who designed a really fantastic brand and sold merchandise, hats, shirts, oyster knives, koozies, you name it. We started building some traction, and it started taking over. It climaxed when we took out one of those New York Harbor boats, and a buddy of mine ran concerts on those boats and gave me a deal on a boat. We put 300 people on the boat, open bar, lobster rolls, oysters, ceviche, and we had a DJ named Jonathan Toubin.

A: I love Jonathan Toubin. He did a party of mine because I was in the music industry, too. I think we crossed paths.

D: Oh man, there’s so much here especially to make connections with you.

A: Yeah, I used to do A&R for J Dub.

D: OK, so we definitely crossed.

A: We used to throw parties at Brooklyn Bowl. I think you booked one of my bands there.

D: It gets so fuzzy between the two.

A: It’s crazy — I’m going on a tangent here — but were you there at the same time? Now I just blanked on his name, but the guy who was involved in signing MGMT and stuff.

D: Oh, Will Griggs.

A: Yes, Will Griggs! Were you there at the same time?

D: Yeah, I took over when Will left. Will was there the first two years, I think, of Brooklyn Bowl. Then, he was focusing on his label and various other projects. Then, a buyer and I were involved in Brooklyn Bowl as a consulting partner for booking. I met those guys early on in my Pianos days. I started hanging out with them. When the time came, they said hey, you’ve got this 800 to 1,000-capacity venue in Brooklyn, and he’s a booker. I’ll do that.

A: That’s amazing.

D: Yeah, Jonathan Toubin is where we left off. Jonathan Toubin actually DJ’d my wedding here on Cape Cod. He was our first ask and he said “yeah, I’ll come up and do it.”

A: Very cool. You’re trying to source great seafood, throwing parties.

D: We were throwing parties and we said to each other, “let’s see how far this goes.” At some point, we expected to stop. There’s going to be some barrier and we can’t go any further and let’s see where that is. It never stopped. We just kept going. We kept finding ways around these barriers and managed to put some investors together because we had built a brand. We wanted to show that we had some traction and engagement. We managed to get some friends, family, private investors, random folks that we had come across that were interested. Before we opened up on June 30, 2018, we opened up this little brick-and-mortar fish market counter and raw bar. We did that for a number of years, expanding into wholesale. My partner Vinnie Milburn was the business brains behind the whole thing and grew and built this wholesale machine. That’s really the direction the business started going, it was wholesale. We realized we weren’t going to add more restaurant locations. The amount of debt you incur to open a new brick and mortar in New York was one step forward, two steps back. We were like, “How are we ever going to get out of this?” We decided wholesale was a lot easier to scale. You have to deal with customers and there are some benefits for certain types of personalities. We started going in that direction. Then I hit a point where I really like the customer-facing side. I really like creating experiences. I’m a promoter at heart. Back when I was booking bands, I was trying to find obscure bands and introduce them to people and grow them. I love that feeling of showing somebody something they haven’t seen before and then people are like “holy shit, that was awesome. Where do I get more?” That’s my drive. The wholesale thing, as awesome as it was to be knee-deep in razor clams at 4 in the morning and lugging 80-pound halibut around before dawn in New York City, it was exciting, but it was brutal hours and it wasn’t where my passion was. I was looking for opportunities and my wife and I were looking to start a family. We’re trying to forecast our life in New York. Then, we thought there might be an opportunity somewhere else. We fantasize, like everybody does who lives in New York, about where you would go. Upstate New York, Vermont, Maine. Then, I realized my family has a house in Cape Cod in South Dennis. I knew the Cape really well. I came here for 25 years with my family, so we asked, “What about Cape Cod?” What’s going on up there? We were looking for businesses for sale. We saw that this famous restaurant called the Red Pheasant Inn was for sale. My parents rented a house every summer from across the street from this restaurant.

A: Oh, wow.

D: I don’t know, for 11 or 12 years. That was where every summer my parents and friends of theirs would go out for an anniversary or a birthday and would leave the kids at home. It was a fancy restaurant on Cape Cod, and it had a massive wine list, white tablecloths. However, it was stuffy and dated, and we never wanted to go to the Red Pheasant. I don’t think they let people in under the age of 16.

A: It was supposed to be an adult place.

D: Exactly. We saw it was for sale and was like, “Oh, that’s interesting.” I think we had just come the summer before and we had walked into the restaurant to have a nice adult dinner. We couldn’t stop thinking about how amazing the floors were. It’s a 250-year-old farmhouse, original wood floors, original post-and-beam. It oozes New England farmhouse vibes. It’s got two working fireplaces. It’s just years, years, and years of firewood into the walls. It’s stunning. It’s a dream place. I remember saying, “Somebody could really do a number with this place.” Anyway, it came up for sale and we couldn’t believe that place was for sale. We kept reading and it said there’s a four-bedroom house attached to it. It’s on an acre and a half. Oh, it’s on a lake. It’s a 10-minute walk to the beach. I know the neighborhood. My parents have a house in the area. This seems like a no-brainer. Let me tell you, money goes a lot further when you leave New York City, as I think everybody knows. It depends on where you go, but we got a lot of bang for the buck.

A: Before we kick it off more, ’cause then I want I to hear about the process — that’s how you wound up on this podcast, right? You actually listened to our Monday podcast episode about restaurateurs and beverage specialists moving to smaller towns, smaller cities to open places, and you reached out. Turns out we had these crazy mutual connections and you got to come on the podcast and talk about it. This is something people are doing. I’d love to use you as a way to show other people who might be thinking about it, what you did, and how you figured it out. The one thing that I wanted to ask you is, did you know other people who had already done this? Who had been restaurateurs in New York City? For example, Prairie Whale in the Berkshires, the way you describe your spot sounds very similar to what it’s like in a very old home. Did you go check out places like that? Did you know people who had done this? What was the thought? What happened when you decided to do this. Did you start doing research, or what research did you do?

D: We probably didn’t do as much research as we should have. We found the building, the property, and the deal was right. We could live there. We could sustain. I think the easiest thing when people do these moves is finding a business and a residence together. It might not sound awesome to be living where you work, but it makes it affordable. If we were just buying the restaurant, it would have been too expensive to buy the restaurant. If you were just buying a house, it would have been too expensive to just buy the house. When you get them together, it’s an incredible deal. The business fee pays for the house, and it’s a self-sustaining system. You can keep the doors open and cover the mortgage or the lease. I think the best thing is to buy in these types of situations because you’re going all-in on this. I’ve seen in other places, what’s worked typically is when you can find that work-live situation. Otherwise, you’d be buying a restaurant and you need quite a bit of cash to do that. Then, you’ve got to figure out where you’re going to live. Sure, sometimes where you are, you can find cheaper housing. What’s tough about the Cape is the housing market is really expensive here. The Cape is such a weird place, because it’s so seasonal and in the off-season has a somewhat rural vibe to it. It’s really quiet and deserted, but the housing prices are crazy because they get such huge money in the summer. The Cape is actually very difficult, unless you’re coming from gobs of money — and good for you if you can make that happen. You need to find this live-work situation. It’s prohibitively expensive to find a business to buy and then to find a house to buy. That’s been the hardest thing. Affordable housing is such a big issue on the Cape because of the weird dynamics of seasonal vacation waterfront homes. Prairie Whale is in Great Barrington, which was definitely an inspiration for sure. I read articles. I read everything I could about people who have done this stuff. None of it accurately describes what it’s going to be like but it’s exciting. It’s romantic. We were reading about Mark. He was involved in Marlow and Sons in the Andrew Tarlow empire in the beginning. Then, they split and went up there to start a farm and then the restaurant. I was like, “This all sounds incredible.” I’m sure the housing market there is not too dissimilar, but I’m sure there are also pockets of much more affordable housing. There’s just a larger space because the Cape is such a limited, narrow strip of land. There’s only one way on, one way off. There isn’t that much inventory. It’s hard to live 40 minutes away.

A: It makes me think of someone who would think about doing this in the Hamptons.

D: Yeah, it’s not nearly that same over-the-top wealth in the same way that the Hamptons can be. However, it definitely has that same one long road all the way to the end. A two-lane highway kind of thing.

A: You’re not going to live 30 minutes away, 40 minutes away. If you need to get to the restaurant, then all of a sudden there’s a traffic jam, basically.

D: Yeah, that’s an issue but there just aren’t that many houses because it’s not 30 miles in every direction. It’s 30 miles north or south, east or west. It just limits how much housing is available in the immediate area.

A: OK, so you buy the place. What was going through your head? Did you know what you wanted to do? Were you going to buy it and take it over? What were the people selling it expecting to happen?

D: The people who sold it to us had owned the restaurant for 40 years. The father ran it for a number of years and the son took over and ran it. It was an institution, a real icon on Cape Cod. I told my parents we’re buying it, they were like “The Red Pheasant?” They couldn’t fathom that we were buying this iconic restaurant. It means a lot to people, a lot of anniversaries, birthdays, special occasions. It was a special-occasion place where people dressed up. It was a nice dinner out in this area, Cape Cod. They were looking to hand this off. I think they were just grateful to get rid of it. Honestly, we felt that toward the end of the business we saw they were 70, and just getting tired. The customers ran the place at the end. They had a regular clientele. I remember I told the chef-owner that we’re going to put this awesome gourmet burger on the menu. He’s like, “Oh, I always wanted to put a burger on the menu and couldn’t.” I never understood what he meant. “Why couldn’t you put a burger on the menu? It’s your restaurant.” Not to get ahead of myself in this conversation, but we had somebody come in when we had first opened and this older gentleman who was wearing a jacket pulled me aside to say, “Are you the owner?” I said “Yeah.” He said, “This is a nice restaurant, you can’t have hamburgers on the menu.” I had this whiplash, this aha moment. I realized that these customers had been with him for 30, 40 years and they had everything dialed in exactly how they wanted it.

A: He wasn’t going to mess with them because they were super-loyal customers.

D: Correct. There are some people that he had met. Oh, man, there’s so much here. Every December, all the towns around the holidays do holiday strolls and people walk through town, restaurants give things away, stores give things away. It’s a meet-and-greet kind of thing. Once we knew we were likely to buy it, we made an offer and it was accepted. I came up to do the stroll because he wanted to introduce me to all the regulars. He wanted to introduce me as the new owner so I came up and met all these people and everybody wanted to meet me and were sizing me up. I remember some people were just terrible. He was like, “Yeah, you don’t want those people. I’m so glad to be getting rid of them.” Oh, thanks, appreciate that. They expected to hand off the restaurant to let us run it. They told us to keep some of the menu items, some of the staples on the menu. Then, maybe you can slowly change them out. Frankly, we had no interest in the old menu. The old menu hadn’t changed in 30, 40 years. It was dated, like French-American, but slowly getting further away from being French. It became a weird menu of wasabi mashed potatoes next to seared duck and just got all over the place.

A: Right. Trendy food items here from the ’90s, mixed with trendy food items here from the ’80s. I know what you’re talking about.

D: We were looking to get rid of that entirely. He said to just be careful. We had learned that two of their items made up about 40 or 50 percent of the menu sales. There was a sole meunière and a seared duck. That was it. That’s all they sold. You can’t run a business like this. If that’s your business, then just open a shack and just sell one item. Don’t open a full-service restaurant with a full menu if you’re only selling two dishes. The logistics and economics of it made no sense. We have to get rid of that, and we have to have a menu that every item is balanced in terms of sales to some degree, at least less than how skewed it is with this current menu. We brought in a chef. We managed to find a chef locally who was really talented, and he wanted nothing to do with the old menu. He was not coming to cook somebody else’s food. We’re like, great, we’re on the same page there. We opened up. The other wrinkle in this whole thing was that Erika, my wife, is pregnant with our first baby. We were told that the due date was July 4th, which, if you know vacation towns in New England, July 4th is a very busy weekend. Easily the busiest weekend of the summer, which therefore is the busiest week of the year. It was also a brand-new restaurant for us. We ended up opening the restaurant on June 1. We had four weeks under us. Then Erika went into labor on July 4th. The baby was born on July 5th. It was insane. I was a zombie the entire year. It was probably the most intense thing we’ve ever done. We were renovating the house and the restaurant. We moved into the rest of the house on May 15, opened the restaurant on June 1, the baby came on July 5th. I don’t recommend it.

A: You’ve re-done the entire place, right?

D: No, it just needed new paint. It was really dark and drab. Everything was mauve, like red. It was just dark and dated. There are lots of tchotchkes everywhere, people bring them gifts I guess. Old Victorian lighting fixtures were hanging from a low ceiling so the whole place had this cavernous feel, but not a good way. It was stuffy so we brightened the whole place up. We added some new tables. We re-did the whole bar area. The bar needed a lot of work. The bones of the place were incredible but it just needed some love. Frankly, a slightly more contemporary approach to the style of a farmhouse, but modernized it a little bit. I think if you were to walk in, you would get what’s going on in here.

A: You basically re-do the place in terms of the menu, etc. What style of cuisine were you going for?

D: The stuff that we had loved in Brooklyn, new American comfort. Our favorite restaurants are these cozy new American spots in Brooklyn with a fantastic wine list and great cocktails. Again, like the Andrew Tarlow empire, Jeffery’s Grocery, this style of rustic, new American, but with great technique and a certain level of casualness at the same time. That was a weird thing for Cape Cod that people didn’t understand that you can have a nice restaurant that’s not fancy. They didn’t get that. People were very upset that we got rid of white tablecloths. We changed out all the glassware. We change out these giant Martini glasses for coupes. People lost their minds. They’re like, “What is this? Where’s my Martini glass?”

A: They’re angry, though.

D: Yeah, they were mad. I’ll tell you, we had people who walked out because we didn’t have a certain type of vodka. That’s all they drank is this one type of vodka and we didn’t have it. They got up and left. Then, they asked us for Limoncello and I didn’t have Limoncello so they left. Cape Cod is a weird place. I love it here, but there’s a weird culture where people overpay for food and underpay for booze. In New York City, there are certain benchmarks, standards for how you price things, and it was inverted on Cape Cod. People are giving away booze and charging stupid money for poor-quality frozen ingredients.

A: Whereas you’re taking the margin where you’re supposed to get it, which is from alcohol.

D: We are serving better-quality food at the same prices as everybody else. Anyway, our drink prices were not quite New York City prices by any means, but were priced according to the ingredients in the drink. There were quality ingredients and cheap cocktails, 12, 13, 14 bucks, but they were measured. They weren’t free-poured. People were really upset that they weren’t getting these giant pours of wine and giant, 6-ounce Martinis. People were angry, and they called us out for being from New York. We had people writing us letters, angry letters, saying they are never coming to our restaurant. For the check presenters, in the beginning, we’re using postcards. We had somebody write us a letter, a really nasty negative letter on one of our postcards with no return address. We were like, “Cool, thanks. I appreciate that.” It was wild. It was hard. The bar food on Cape Cod is very low. It’s been stuck in this ‘80s, ‘90s thing with seafood shacks with low-quality ingredients. It’s touristy, right? It’s getting your money when you can from people you’re never going to see more than once. Everything was stuck in that. Erika and I, coming from New York, we‘re going to be on Cape Cod. We want to create a place that we would eat on a regular basis, not just a special occasion, but a place that you want to go and see your friends. You want to go post up at the bar. You never know who’s going to walk in and be a neighborhood community spot. We thought we were bringing something that was very much needed to the Cape. It was needed. On the other side of this, people who don’t like change. You get older people, especially on Cape Cod there’s a lot of retirees. You get people who think they know everything, and they like it because nothing changes. As soon as you come in and you’re from a place in New York City, they get very upset.

A: It seems as though you thought that you were going to come in and people would say, “Thank you so much, we’ve been waiting for a Brooklyn-style restaurant on Cape Cod.” And they were like “get the fuck out.”

D: That was exactly it. There are so many emotions flying, between the move, the baby, going all-in on every penny. Then, to have somebody essentially spit in your face and not care about any of that. It’s the people who wouldn’t even try it, the people who wouldn’t even sit down and taste it would say, “I can’t read any of these ingredients. I don’t know what any of this is.” They were getting offended because they felt radicchio is a novel concept. You don’t want to make people feel small. They want to know and understand, they don’t want to have to ask questions. We were trying to do something where we were introducing people to new things. That’s the fun of it, right? For my wife and I, that’s why we like dining out, to go to new places and try different things and be excited when the menu changes every time we’re there because there’s something new to try. It’s an experience for us, and we’re dealing with a lot of people who just want the same thing every time. They wanted to count on certain things. On top of that, we throw in a seasonal menu, which changes four times a year and their heads really spin. They would say “Oh, I love that dish, where did it go?” We try to do something different that’s not in season anymore. We burned a lot of these old regulars from this restaurant, hard. Honestly, it was probably the best thing that ever happened.

A: There’s a silver lining here, Adam. Right now, it sounds all doom and gloom. You go to another place and you open the thing. We’ve got to get there.

D: Yeah, we’re going to get there. I’m just trying to say it is hard. It was a roller coaster of emotions. Everybody who’s considering doing this should be prepared for how this can happen.

A: Yeah, you don’t just walk in as a conquering hero.

D: Yeah, exactly. It took us a minute to recover. That first year, we closed for the first winter. We closed for three months because we were so fried emotionally. We asked, “What are we doing?” We stuck it out. That first year we had to go through that fire because the customers that came out the second year were so much more pleasant. They were people who didn’t go initially because they were nervous about this new restaurant. Then they started coming out and the previous restaurant customers, most of them, had left. It was great. All of a sudden, people are commenting on how much younger the guests in the restaurant were. It was a place where we heard that older and younger people used to call The Red Pheasant “The Dead Pheasant” because it was just so stuffy and old. It’s been taking a long time, but people now are like, Oh, it’s not The Red Pheasant anymore. It’s not like that, it’s not stuffy. It’s new owners, it’s young, it’s exciting. Those people had started coming out after these, for lack of a better term, crotchety, angry, disgruntled older customers stopped coming because they felt like this is a cool place to be. Every year since then has gotten better and better. People are more receptive to our menus and ingredient choices, style, and drink menus. The second year, we did a CBD cocktail with a weed leaf garnish dropped on top of the rocks, and people were so excited. People came out. We ran that for 4/20 as a special, and people went nuts. This is clearly a new thing here. Then, fast-forward, we got to Covid, and we were panicking. We were closed for six weeks. We were on vacation in Jamaica when the news started coming out in February about this looming pandemic. I was freaking out and having a hard time settling in on vacation. Then, we came back and it was full-blown. We were supposed to open on March 18 for the season. The governor shut everything down on the 16th, I think it was. It all changed. Then, we decided to push everything outside. We just did picnic tables. I’m really proud of how we set it up. There was all counter-service. We ran food out to you. The menu was much faster, and it was really easy for the kitchen to execute. It was a really fun and high-quality menu. It was casual. Everything’s in takeout containers. High-quality, compostable biodegradable containers, but still takeout containers nonetheless. We also had compostable forks and knives. The wine was all in plastic. It was all cans and bottles. We didn’t do anything by the glass, but it worked really, really well. We had a lot of people who were blown away by the experience. We had families coming out, which is great. The restaurant during normal times is probably not a great place for little kids. Their parents are absolutely our regular customers, and we can introduce them. Also, get people in during the summer that will hopefully continue to come. When things get back to normal, they’ll get babysitters and now they discover this restaurant. We had people who would be on vacation for five days and they were coming three or four nights of their trip because they were so excited about being outside and being safe. Everything was really spacious. We started selling all this natural wine that we were struggling to sell previously. I’ve got old ladies drinking Broc Cellars Love Red cans by the case. It was incredible. The casualness that was forced upon everybody really worked in our favor. It really took the pressure off, because we are still known to a lot of people as this special-occasion restaurant, which is a tag label we’ve been trying to shed. It really changed people. I’ve had customers say “I actually really liked your outdoor vibe better than what the restaurant was previously inside.”

A: I wonder about that. A bunch of people I know, we’re talking about now doing two different things when things go back to normal. For example, we brought on James who owns Popina in Brooklyn. I don’t know if Popina existed before you left.

D: I don’t think so but I’ve been keeping tabs on things.

A: He basically went to counter service and the question now becomes, does he become counter service in one part of his restaurant, or is that a during-the-day thing where he’s counter service and then he converts to sit down at night? There are now customers who love that. They love that they could come at 1 o’clock in the afternoon, get a bottle of wine, eat some of your food, sit out in the backyard and play bocce. Also, it’s going to allow him to come back more easily. We talk about this a lot on the podcast, too. What is it going to look like in terms of service and how many people are going to add to your staff and that kind of stuff? I wonder, have you thought about that, too? Would The Pheasant be casual during the day? Then you go to the traditional sit-down at night but outdoors. It’s still the same kind of counter service, etc. you guys were doing?

D: The problem with space is that we realize it’s not good to do indoor and outdoor at the same time. It’s one or the other. This past summer, while we were doing all the outdoor seating and everything, we were like, “Let’s do lunch. Let’s try lunch because we’re set up. It’s beautiful out. It’s Cape Cod.” We’ve never done lunch before and we were proven right. We don’t do lunch because on Cape Cod, on a sunny day, no one’s eating lunch. They’re all at the beach. Everyone’s at the beach. If you don’t have a waterfront view, you’re not going to get lunch business. There are a couple of places maybe, but most of them have views. Most of them have some connection with the beach or you can walk on from the beach. We tried for the first two months of June and July, offering lunch. It just didn’t happen. You would get a couple of tables. It’s also hard to change people’s perceptions. On the Cape, the biggest issue we have is marketing and communicating to customers, because so many people are tourists. They come out on the weekends, and there’s no way to connect to them. We hit people on Facebook and Instagram with ads or promote ads in Boston, because we want to get them before they come out here because once they’re out here, they’ve already made their plans. They know where they’re going. They’re going to go to all the favorites. You have to get them talking and thinking about it before they even get out here, get it on their radar. It’s hard to suddenly convince people like, “Oh, by the way, the restaurant is now doing lunch.” They’ve never done lunch in the 40 years they’ve been a business. We didn’t see it. The plan for us, and I’m knocking on wood right now, but we’re less than a mile from our local beach, which is a fantastic beach, very family friendly corporation beach. It’s a 10-minute walk, and they have a killer snack bar there. Well, the operator right now is not awesome. It’s pretty generic, mozzarella sticks and a bad burger. It’s just generic, but the space and layout are awesome. There are all these picnic tables on a cliff above the dunes, looking over the beach. It’s a really great setting, and it comes up for bid every two years. We’re going to put in for it for next summer and try to kill that program. That’s how we’ll do lunch. It’s off-site, but it’s less than a mile away. It’s a different style of food. You get people that way and then transition them, “Hey, come off the beach, bring this flyer and come get a cocktail with us at 5 o’clock or 4 o’clock.”

A: That’s awesome.

D: That is what we’re thinking is the transition and the next move is to get lunch because you have a captive audience at the beach.

A: You guys are closed now because this is the worst time to be open in Covid. What are your plans for when you reopen?

D: We were debating for a long time. I was really stressing out about if we’re going to be inside, outside, or if we’re going to do both. I was really concerned that a lot of people are going to want this sense of normalcy and they’re going to want to go back inside. We had a comfortable bar. A lot of regulars and people tell us, “We can’t wait to go back to the bar.” I was thinking, if we don’t go inside, we are going to have a lot of disappointed people, and people want normal. The more we thought about it, there’s just no flow. The building wasn’t designed to do that. The server who is going out with food would have to be sharing the entrance with people coming in. It’s a really long haul from the kitchen. We were talking about putting in new doors and this historic farmhouse cut doors into the side to access outside. It was just getting more and more complicated. We were thinking, all right, we already have all this infrastructure for doing outdoor dining. It’s summer on Cape Cod. Most people are probably going to eat outside. Last summer, everybody had outdoor dining setups, but they were janky. There were a lot of crappy rental tents with cement barricades. Those places are not going to do that again. They’re all going to go back inside because it’s easier for them. We’re set back from the road and we have these lush gardens and it’s very private. There are string lights, and you feel like you’re somewhere else. We’re thinking, “Let’s just stick with outside, we have the model down. We can build upon it and let’s take a chance on being the only game in town doing extensive outdoor seating. We’ve got 20 tables. We can put 120 people outside. It’s substantial. Let’s try that again and own it.” Massachusetts is operating differently than New York, from what I can tell. There’s a reopening, and they lifted the capacity limits in Massachusetts. The only restrictions for indoor dining are six feet apart, but nobody can get vaccines. The governor is saying, “We know the vaccines are taking a long time, everyone needs to be patient. We’re racing against the variants to get everybody vaccinated but we’re excited to reopen restaurants and businesses.” We’ve gone this far, why don’t we wait until more people are vaccinated or restaurant workers are vaccinated? Going inside is somewhat contingent on hope and a prayer that it seems it’s trending in that direction, but I don’t know. What do we know for sure? Outside, it’s safe. It’s Cape Cod in the summer, people like sitting outside, we know we can execute it. Let’s just do it. And we have this rare opportunity where other towns are giving waivers to restaurants to do extensive outdoor dining in areas that they normally wouldn’t let you do outdoor dining. You have to have patios. You have to have all kinds of infrastructure to do it “properly.” They’ve allowed waivers last summer, and I just checked again and they are going to do it again this year. Let’s run with it. Why complicate it? Everybody can feel comfortable. We can continue doing the kid thing. That all being said, we know that transition back inside in the fall next year is going to be rough, because we have to completely reinvent the restaurant. We’re going to close for a couple of weeks and go back inside because it’s just too cold out here, as it is in New York. I’m not looking forward to that, but I think that’s going to be the play. That’s where we’re at right now. We’re on a break right now, but every day all we’re doing is trying to run through scenarios. If we’re not doing anything inside, we have to do outdoor bathrooms. Are people going to respond to that? Are they going to get angry? How do we do this? How is the flow going to work? It’s a lot of what-ifs and unknowns. It’s stressful, but it’s almost easier now that we decide we’re just going to be outside, as opposed to trying to think about half in, half out. That’s the play. I’ve had fun listening to all the podcasts about your predictions and trends. I was listening to the lemonade one. I’m like, “Huh, I should probably look into lemonade.” We’re doing a lot of research and trying to see, trying to glean as much information as we can to try to have the most efficient and best summer we can. On Cape Cod, summer is it. You make 80 percent of your revenue for the year in three months.

A: It’s crazy.

D: We’re hoping that this year will start earlier. Last year, it didn’t really take off until August, because everyone was locked down and they weren’t allowing rentals on the Cape until July. It sputtered along until August, and then took off. This year, as soon as the weather turns, it’s going to be on like a firehose. There are no rental properties on Cape Cod. You can’t find a place to stay. It’s wild. They just announced part of the reopening so now you can have outdoor gatherings of 150 people. And so, all the weddings are back on. All the resorts are booked. It’s going to be bananas. You want to be in the right position to receive all that. There’s not a whole lot of room for error, at least for us. We take it really seriously. We take every review seriously. If somebody doesn’t leave telling us how amazing a time they had, we feel like we failed.

A: It means you’re a good restaurateur.

D: We’re trying to have it all dialed in for this quick hit, and then we’ll cross the next bridge when we get to it.

A: Well, Adam, this has been an amazing conversation. I feel like I’ve definitely learned a lot about what you’ve been through, which is awesome. Hopefully, everyone who has listened has as well. I think if you are thinking about moving from a city into a smaller town, much of what you say is encouraging to people. I think you’re also a realist, which is great. It’s not going to be easy. You’re not going to go somewhere and be welcomed with open arms. I think your story is a really, really cool one. I really appreciate you sharing it with me.

D: My pleasure. The best takeaway is that the quality of life is incredible. That’s the biggest thing. At the end of the day, on any given day, our son goes to the lake in the morning and goes to the beach in the afternoon, maybe we go fishing. It’s this incredible, magic childhood. We love being here in the winter because it’s so quiet and beautiful. We have so much space, but nothing comes easy. That was our ultimate goal. We will figure out the other part of it. Don’t give up the fight, but just know that it’s definitely not easy.

A: Well, Adam, thanks so much again, I really appreciate it. I wish you the best. I can’t wait to come to The Pheasant sometime. I’ve actually never been to Cape Cod, so I’m going to have to go. People talk about how amazing it is.

D: Thanks for having me. It’s a pleasure.

Thanks so much for listening to the podcast. If you love this show as much as we love making it, then please leave a rating on review on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever it is you get your podcasts. It really helps everyone else discover the show.

Now for the credits, VinePair is produced and recorded in New York City in Seattle, Wash., by myself and Zach Geballe, who does all the editing and loves to get the credit Also, I would love to give a special shout-out to my VinePair co-founder, Josh Malin, for helping make all this possible, and also to Keith Beavers, VinePair’s tasting director, who is additionally a producer on the show. I also want to, of course, thank every other member of the VinePair team who is instrumental in all of the ideas that go into making the show every week. Thanks so much for listening, and we’ll see you again.

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johnboothus · 4 years ago

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Next Round: Leaving NYC for a Small Town With Restaurateur Adam Dunn

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Adam Dunn: Not much. Enjoying a beautifully sunny day here on Cape Cod.

A: You were at Brooklyn Bowl, right?

A: I love Jonathan Toubin. He did a party of mine because I was in the music industry, too. I think we crossed paths.

D: Oh man, there’s so much here especially to make connections with you.

A: Yeah, I used to do A&R for J Dub.

D: OK, so we definitely crossed.

A: We used to throw parties at Brooklyn Bowl. I think you booked one of my bands there.

D: It gets so fuzzy between the two.

A: It’s crazy — I’m going on a tangent here — but were you there at the same time? Now I just blanked on his name, but the guy who was involved in signing MGMT and stuff.

D: Oh, Will Griggs.

A: Yes, Will Griggs! Were you there at the same time?

A: That’s amazing.

D: Yeah, Jonathan Toubin is where we left off. Jonathan Toubin actually DJ’d my wedding here on Cape Cod. He was our first ask and he said “yeah, I’ll come up and do it.”

A: Very cool. You’re trying to source great seafood, throwing parties.

A: Oh, wow.

A: It was supposed to be an adult place.

A: It makes me think of someone who would think about doing this in the Hamptons.

A: You’re not going to live 30 minutes away, 40 minutes away. If you need to get to the restaurant, then all of a sudden there’s a traffic jam, basically.

A: OK, so you buy the place. What was going through your head? Did you know what you wanted to do? Were you going to buy it and take it over? What were the people selling it expecting to happen?

A: He wasn’t going to mess with them because they were super-loyal customers.

A: Right. Trendy food items here from the ’90s, mixed with trendy food items here from the ’80s. I know what you’re talking about.

A: You’ve re-done the entire place, right?

A: You basically re-do the place in terms of the menu, etc. What style of cuisine were you going for?

A: They’re angry, though.

A: Whereas you’re taking the margin where you’re supposed to get it, which is from alcohol.

A: There’s a silver lining here, Adam. Right now, it sounds all doom and gloom. You go to another place and you open the thing. We’ve got to get there.

D: Yeah, we’re going to get there. I’m just trying to say it is hard. It was a roller coaster of emotions. Everybody who’s considering doing this should be prepared for how this can happen.

A: Yeah, you don’t just walk in as a conquering hero.

D: I don’t think so but I’ve been keeping tabs on things.

A: That’s awesome.

D: That is what we’re thinking is the transition and the next move is to get lunch because you have a captive audience at the beach.

A: You guys are closed now because this is the worst time to be open in Covid. What are your plans for when you reopen?

A: It’s crazy.

A: It means you’re a good restaurateur.

D: We’re trying to have it all dialed in for this quick hit, and then we’ll cross the next bridge when we get to it.

D: Thanks for having me. It’s a pleasure.

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