Medusa Capital, LLC
Here’s an interesting remnant of COVID college I’d forgotten about…Picking your head up from a room temp White Claw and thinking…why the hell have I hung out with (insert dude who’s not classic) for the past five weekends?…If I get COVID, it better not be from (insert dude who’s not classic and can’t smell or taste).
This became such a problem for me by early 2021, that I ended up in Napa on a birthday trip with six close friends and a dude who’d been on trial for manslaughter (years prior to the wine tasting). Side note: he also slid his way into a Costa Rica trip I did not partake in. All of this to say, plenty of photos could use a good command K and possibly the lasso tool if needed. As the world opened up, my weekends obviously started changing for the better. Agency and freewill became easier to wield as I was no longer restricted to such a multiple choice selection of degeneracy. But of course, it’s still easy to get stuck, whether or not there’s six feet of federally recommended separation, and become unsure how to maneuver the social circles for maximum resulting vibes. As you can sense by the recent dip in newsletter quality, I fear recently that I’ve planted my feet too firm in an uneventful rotation. Created my own multiple choice when I should be filling in the blank. Last Friday, the alarms officially sounded. It was my old friend De Ja Vu, reminding me of this haunting COVID college phenomenon. Suddenly, I picked my head up from the White Claw and realized it was the second weekend I’d hung out with Townes.
I do feel bad about using his real name (it’s not his real name). But seriously. If someone’s name is Townes…it’d pretty hard to make up anything remotely funnier (trying to). I met Townes two weekends ago at Q’s. He was, as I understood, and take a deep breath for this one…my friend’s girlfriend’s friend’s boyfriend’s friend. I guess Townes was a straight shooter. I just wasn’t a fan of what he tended to shoot. Everything he nonchalantly lofted into speech sounded like a letter to the editor of Robb Report. I wasn’t sure if it was a bit or not. But then it became apparent it was most definitely not. I asked him where he was from…Sun Valley, Idaho, he told me. His buddy (friend’s girlfriend’s friend’s boyfriend) then let us know how clean he was on the slopes. Townes humbly replied that if any of us grew up in such an area, we’d be as dirty as he was too. Good to know, Townes. I asked what brought him to LA. Townes told me work. It was an investment bank that I unfortunately do not remember the name of. Let’s make one up though…Medusa Capital. That’s what it is now. And if Medusa Capital doesn’t exist yet, that’s the name of my future investment bank. Dibs on that. Moving on. I then asked Townes how he knew my friend’s girlfriend’s friend’s boyfriend. “Well I was fully blacked out at Belles Beach House and he was almost blacked out.” That was his complete answer. I nodded then stared straight down the barrel of my close friend Conceptual. Was he hearing what I was hearing? But Conceptch just smiled. Maybe he was getting a kick out of it all. I couldn’t tell. Nonetheless, we dug deeper and somewhere along the line, we got a last name. Friedrich.
Townes Friedrich.
My anal sphincter tightened upon hearing that one. Generations of Jewish diaspora quickly triggered a fight or flight reaction. Townes Friedrich could never find out I had Bar Mitzvah sweatshirts with my initials and a date on them. Luckily, friends of the newslett, Parad, Mark Mollner, and company entered the bar soon after. But their plans had already diverged from ours earlier that afternoon. You see, they had devised a tavern hopping version of their favorite board game, Settlers of Catan. I wasn’t quite sure just how serious this game would be. I even turned down the invitation to join their problematic colonization days prior. But then my friend’s girlfriend’s friend’s boyfriend’s friend, Townes, entered the picture. And oh, I forgot to mention his friend had arrived by that point, Bonobos God. A Net-negative add when we desperately needed the opposite. So I considered for a moment…do I settle Catan instead? Parad then took out a spiral notebook and began reading off the rules. As soon as I heard lumber rations, I was out.
Conceptch and I regrouped at the bar. We confirmed that we were indeed in the presence of low level conversationalists. Maybe a location change could help. So we trudged on to Thunderbird. A watering hole I’ve described before as such…
“A real system bar, if I may say. Get in there with a solid half court set and your group will get what they need for an hour or two. Free solo and try to Before Sunrise that shit? Have fun sucking down Allagash and chatting up every AWS salesman on this side of the Mississippi.”
And we had no such half court offense. Instead, a rag tag group with two of whom, just as I assumed on many weekends five years ago, I’d surely never see again. Not before Townes’ and I exchanged Instagrams, though. His first photos were at an F1 Grand Prix. On the paddock, nonetheless. How the hell did Townes get in the garage with Verstappen? “I said name your price and they did,” he told me. This one particularly hurt my neck. On my profile, he found our viral podcast Elevator Pitch. Told him it was a wagon. “Let me talk to my people and see what they can do,” he graciously told me. Real sentence. And that was about when Conceptual, Mrs. Conceptual, and I decided to make our exfill. On the walk home, we laughed. Surely, we’d never hang with such a crew again.
Turns out, we dragged ourselves to Thunderbird that next weekend. And who’s at our table 30 minutes later? The kid from Sun Valley. The fastest black card in The West. I said hi with a smile. “What’s a guy this good looking allowed to do in this bar?” Townes quipped back before a polite dap. I’m told 10 seconds later he turned around to Bonobos God and asked who the hell I was. I’m the guy writing about you a week later. But really…am I writing about myself?
Because secretly, I have to admire Townes (and Bonobos God). Their plan is to take down gin and tonics, I assume at Belles each weekend and goddammit, they go out and do it. I admire Parad and the drunk Settlers of Catan. Not only did they have a plan but rules as well! Me? Hell, I’m on the leash of my own convenience. Saying sure a whole lot more than how ‘bout we? So it’s time to be proactive about being proactive. Lock into the Apple Cal and fire off a few texts when I know there’s a vibe to curate. Hey…I can be the line leader if I want to. It might just be my turn in class.
Pioneer party? Who’s down?
