1/24/03 7:30 PM PST: I have officially failed as a restauranteur.

"Never mix business with friendship." That cliche somehow failed to stick with me after the catastrophe that was Madness Media (now a softcore porn company ... long story), and when my dear neighbor Leon was booted from his Friday setup of barbecue and good times, his need for a locale and my boredom at unemployment fell together like a drunken Madonna and anybody who's still around.

So we blow through about $100 each in supplies, and make about $40 each. This takes us about four hours on Thursday and about the same for me today (he started three hours before me and worked a lot harder today, however). My bright, shining career as a restauranteur shattered before it could begin, oh, the tragedy ...

It all came down to me and him having a different business model. You see, Leon is at heart a really nice and friendly guy. He says hello to almost everyone he meets. He strikes up conversations with complete strangers. He's a great neighbor and a great friend.

I'm not much like that.

So when he asks me in, I say I'm happy to open my yard and launch a marketing campaign the likes of which south Los Angeles has never seen -- fliers, promotions, music, everything. He is against that, since he just dodged a health inspector (see he was selling BBQ out of the back of his truck, across the street from a BBQ restaurant ... I'm gonna stop there because it gives me a headache). He wanted to serve primarily 40s plus customers, people he and I knew (he forgot that almost everybody I know works during the day or won't eat meat), and build slowly.

Raise your hands, anybody who thinks I'd have been interested in such a methodology when it comes to money? Yeah, thought so.

He also wants me out there with him, ladling potato salad into trays and smiling happily at customers. Me. Talking to people. On purpose. It's like sitting a brick wall painted like scenery on a train track. Nothing good can come of that.

I mean, I'm a marketing guy. You don't want marketing guys to mingle with what we laughingly refer to as "normal people" -- partially because the norms will skewer his ability to communicate with them (all I could do is update my site when I got done) and because it might be hard to hide the deadness and hatred for all life inside every marketing guy, which surely will creep people out. Right?

So with less than robust advertising, he set up shop, and we had less than robust sales. We both netted about $40. He realized I was right -- at this scale, working together, we could never make any money. He didn't want me to overload the scene with customers, drawing attention and forcing him to hire somebody else. I don't wanna stand around talking to people, let alone letting them linger on my lawn or my porch. Space madness.

So that was the end of my "bye week," where I relaxed (sorta) and prepped myself for hardcore work (writing proposals, job hunting, et cetera) next week. Of course, this BBQ madness, along with a number of other surprises, kind of cut short the fun of it, but what's unemployment without frustrating disappointments?

Being rich.

Anyhoo, I have some vague ideas of other things I wanna rant on -- the shadow of war and its utter irrelevance in everyday life, some guides I've learned from corporate life -- but for now, you'll just have to make due with a tale of sauce and sadness.