Money washes in and out, moving with the tide. And you’re there with a net trying to catch a little for yourself.
At least it does if you’re the hamster on the office wheel like me, chasing that elusive piece of cheese ie. personal freedom through financial security. Each day you climb aboard the wheel, fooling yourself that with each desperate lunge you’re getting closer to the prize. It’s the illusion that drives the capitalist system and I’m a sucker like everyone else.
My dear business partner, however, has been taking sybarism to a dangerous new height. A sybarite, as I’m sure you’re well aware, is one who revels in sensuous luxury, a self-indulgent pleasure seeker. Well, three weeks ago, while in Hollywood to help Taj Burrow cut his new movie, Fair Bits, Mr McIntosh was invited on an all-expenses paid shoot to Cabo San Lucas. The day before he ate cheese on sticks and drank Beligan beer at a party with Pharrel Williams as its guest of honour. Cool. Well done, I’m compelled to say while my heart silently roars otherwise.
Upon his return, the crew bivouacs at Malibu for a
shoot with Kelly Slater, Rob Machado and Taj where each surfer is
called on to ride some ridiculous piece of flotsam including a coffee
table, water-skis and a giant canoe. Later that day, Kelly asks Taj if
he wants to come to Vegas for a Stuff magazine party. Paris’ll be
there, says The Champ.
Okay if I bring Wheels, asks Taj?
The Champ, despite his warning in March that he would slay either me or Wheels if he ever laid eyes upon us, agrees.
The first I hear of it, Wheels is on the tarmac at Las Vegas airport. Middle of the night, thirty-five degrees.
I’m on my way to the Palms for a party, he says. With Paris.
I put down one of the 374 subscriber packages I’d been readying for the mail, squeegee a river of sweat off my brow, and say: Wow, that’s great.
Over the next seven hours, using Taj’s tariff-free Boost mobile, I’m given a beat-by-beat description of a party that soon moves to an exclusive penthouse suite. At the night’s conclusion, Slater and TB pass out together in a king-size bed, mutually and platonically exhausted. Wheels, meanwhile, is in the hallway, tumescent sword tearing a hole in the universe, engaged in a desperate early morning frottage.
Meanwhile, the hamster keeps on running. And the wheel slowly turns. – Derek Rielly.
