Dolla dolla bill y'all

During half time of last week's Celtics game, this Chinese acrobat named Red Panda came out to perform. Her act is balancing on a tall unicycle and then flipping bowls onto her head. She starts with just a few and then ramps up to an unbelievable five at a time. This ESPN article describes the way her act captures the lackadaisical half time crowd's attention. By the end of her routine, Henry and I were cheering like she was the female Jeremy Lin. Here's video of her during her final flip. The progression from two to five is exciting-er but this is pretty good just by itself.

We were trying to figure out how much Red Panda got paid. The answer lies in the article: about $2,000-$3,000 per show. Let's say she does a minimum of a hundred shows a year, that's a nice bit of money. The downside of her job has to be the constant traveling and maybe the tiresome routine of doing the same thing over and over again. My thinking was why wouldn't she just do fifty shows a year and live comfortably instead of jetting around all the time?

Well, I forgot about the grind. No, not the negative grind, the semi-positive one. I forgot to factor in what happens when she can't do her act anymore. When her body ages, when she consistently starts missing a few bowls, when she gets burned out, when something happens and she stops performing and won't be paid a cent.

Much like the NBA athletes she shares the court with (sorta), she has to cash in on her talent while she can. She chooses not to do just the minimum, but perhaps two hundred shows a year, working at max capacity before she's forced out, or maybe saves enough to retire. I was trying to figure out if I could do that. Saddle up for fifteen years, churn out the money, and then look back.

Rhetorical question, obviously.

In contrast, this article, "I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave," is about workers who, unlike Red Panda, have no such unique skills. A human rights reporter for Mother Jones goes undercover in an online retailer's warehouse and tells us what lies behind the efficiency of low prices and free shipping. My body ached just from reading her story.

Sometimes I'm certain that I'm only a desperate heave away from that kind of job, and I wonder how long I would last. A day, a week, a month? I've done some boring ass shit for a long time, but nothing that required me to be under such draconian supervision. On paper though, nothing would necessarily set me apart from most of those workers. Unless you count WPM, then I'd outclass them all.

If you are into chess history even a little, you may already know about the Polgar sisters. They were each prodigies, born and bred to destroy others at the (real) beautiful game. I've been following them for awhile and "The Grandmaster Experiment" is an interesting article from Psychology Today about how they were raised to be the best. All you need to do is start young apparently. Tiger Mom knew this. Turul Dad, Laszlo Polgar, sought out a wife specifically to fulfill his theories.

"After studying the biographies of hundreds of great intellectuals, [Laszlo] had identified a common theme -- early and intensive specialization in a particular subject. Laszlo thought the public school system could be relied upon to produce mediocre minds. In contrast, he believed he could turn any healthy child into a prodigy. He had already published a book on the subject, Bring Up Genius!, and he needed a wife willing to jump on board."

I am going to raise a champion one day. Since I hope to remain eternally unfettered and single, it will likely have to be one of your donated children. (George, if you have twins, I claim one. If you have triplets, we'll talk about it. If you have quadruplets or more, Mom's gonna faint.) Despite it not being my biological progeny, I'll feel a strong measure of pride just the same. Strive for the top of the charts I say. You provide the love, I'll provide the training regimen.