By Shiny Fang, MBA

An oasis is a spot where you get much-needed water. But what happens when you have a studio space overlooking the Pacific Ocean that is rustic, filled with character, textured in redwood and brick—and happens to be an underground bunker on three sides and is perfect for a fledgling media outfit?

We found this sink. It arrived on a pallet, delivered by a huge truck. We’ve been waiting a long time for this sink.

I am 57 and my business partner Shady is 67. We are investigative satirists who go after the people who want to make you sick by getting you to cram deadly foods and beverages down your otherwise pristine piehole.

No debt, no investors, no credit lines. We are bootstrapping Life Points LLC with our own money. Shady has started companies like this multiple times. For me, this is the third time. Ten years ago, I bootstrapped my asset management company, which I own 100%. Five years ago, Shady and I started a second asset management company that we share. My bio is here. Shady’s is here.

Shady says, “The purest form of democracy is the blank page. There it sits, heckling you like a dunk-tank clown: ‘Come on, loser! You call yourself a writer, an entrepreneur, a performer, a story maker?! Show us what you can do!’”

To produce what we want to produce, the way we want to produce it, we need a lot of equipment: cameras, speakers, high-definition screens, lights, control boards, and so on. We have a small studio, about 550 square feet, but it has 12-foot ceilings—perfect for media production.

We have one rule: when you are speaking, you must be standing. Never sit on camera.

We have no neighbor on one side. On the other side is a well-known tailor. The owner is 75 years old and has been a tailor all her life. She works six days a week and still moves like a spring chicken—which is great, because chickens play a big role in our series, considering God struck Shady dead as he was choking down a freebie on National Fried Chicken Sandwich Day. When we need a costume made or an alteration, we just walk out of our studio and make a right turn. She is right there, the perfect neighbor for us.

When Shady decides to do something, he works like a madman. Within a couple of months, we had cameras everywhere, lights hanging from the ceiling, thousands of cables, multiple devices pointing at the stage he designed and built, and control boards with over 60 buttons live-switching scenes from one to the next.

Shady works fifteen hours a day, seven days a week. The only time he takes a break is to use the common-area bathroom in the alley—and I suspect sometimes not even then, though I can’t prove it.

It is perfect. Well—almost perfect. The thing is, Shady sometimes eats three meals a day in there. Audit Shady’s Piehole for yourself!

Shady publishes his intake in near-real time. I can see that minutes ago he finished a 2.5-pound organic salad from Jimbo’s Salad Bar with quinoa, celery, carrots, chickpeas, diced white chicken meat, cucumbers, corn, peas, and a few sprinkles of parmesan cheese with probiotic balsamic vinaigrette.

He uses a microwave to heat up the food he brings from home, prepared by his long-suffering wife, Julie. One day, I stopped by the studio and opened the microwave.

“OMG, how could you live like this?!” I screamed.

The microwave had food particles from eons ago glued to the surface. At some point, he must have exploded the guts of an egg and did not clean it up.

It was so gross!

It was not totally Shady’s fault. He has been a clean person, according to Julie. The issue was that there were no plumbing pipes in the studio, hence no water to wash things off. Shady had to buy bottled water from the store just to make coffee.

“It would be nice to be able to make scrambled eggs in the morning and cook some chicken in a skillet—once I have water to wash things off,” Shady commented after I calmed down from my shock.

Such are Shady’s modest wishes. I decided to make his wish my command. Shady works so hard; he was sent back to Earth on a mission from God, armed with a Matthew 7:1 Waiver. “Judge not, lest ye be judged” does not apply to Shiny & Shady. We are fully authorized to judge others without consequence, as long as such judgment is restricted to their behavior when it comes to choosing what they cram down their piehole.

That’s when it hits me. At home, we have sinks everywhere. Why can’t we install a sink here?

I found a pipeless sink. It is a fancy-looking sink with an elegant, modern design. The most important part is that it does not need to be connected to plumbing at all. Two hidden tanks hold clean water and wastewater. Plug it into an electrical outlet, press the foot pedal, and running water magically appears.

This is genius!

The sink arrives in a month. Shady and I have never been so excited about a sink! With this sink in the studio, anything is possible.

Shady eats 20 pounds of produce a week. Now he can actually wash it! We can make fresh salads, eat more fruit, and get more protein. Shady can enjoy his favorite scrambled eggs and sautéed chicken. He may even look more handsome if he can fit his head under the sink and give his hair a nice, fresh wash.

As for me, I will sleep better knowing that I will no longer be having nightmares from Shady’s creepy microwave.

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Your body is a business in which you hold 100% equity. Your head calls the shots. It has seven holes in it. Two for light. Two for sound. Two for scent. But your seventh hole—your mouth— that’s the loading dock. Did you back up the dumpster last night?

I’m at Ruth’s Chris. “Would you like to share the wedge?”

As a recovering mindless eater, the wedge was my go-to. I loved the wedge. What’s not to love? A perfectly cut half head of iceberg lettuce presented to me on the plate, the leaves shining with freshness, making me feel instantly healthy, virtuous and justified to indulge myself in the sludge of blue cheese and bacon bits.

• Brain says: “Healthy!”

• Taste buds say: “Tasty!”

• Results? Everybody leaves a winner!

Today, the wedge creates wedges.

“Since we have four of you ladies, I’ll bring two wedges on four plates,” the server says, assuming the sale.

No longer a mindless amateur, I politely but mindfully say, “Split it three ways.”

Little bit awkward in here. It had to be done. But, why?

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It’s November 9, 2022. I nearly lost my beloved, longtime business partner for good. Happily, it turns out God had other plans for Shady (and for me). Shady explains the situation this way:

“One minute I’m choking down my free fried chicken sandwich on National Fried Chicken Sandwich Day. Next I’m flatlining naked on a gurney shitting myself for the same ER audience I’m going to see Tuesday at Trader Joe’s!”

Shady claims God sent him back on a mission to “deliver his disciples from the evils of salt, sugar and saturated fat.”

I’ve never said this before in public. I believe Shady.

I have an MBA in finance. We know our bodies are binary. We are just a bunch of ones and zeroes. Why can’t food be binary? Let’s say you receive one life point for a carrot. Now let’s say you get three death points for carrot cake. Your score is minus two. This is how Shady chooses to live his second life. (Click here to see Shady’s Piehole Score)

Shady didn’t die because he was stupid. He died because he was a mindless, gluttonous amateur. But, I’m not judging. To the contrary, I conducted a thorough forensic audit on what I put in my mouth.

I am shocked! I hope you are sitting down or even laying down, just not on a gurney.

Get this — my wonderful wedge salad has been secretly adding death to my bloodstream and it looks like this.

Everything lines up in the photo. The wedge is narrowing the lining of my arteries. The wedge is literally creating a wedge.

Shady had a 100% blockage when he had his widow maker heart attack. They bring Shady’s future widow in to say goodbye. So much equipment. A dozen medical professionals locked in on her husband of 45 years. Julie kisses Shady gently on the cheek, whispering, “This is going to be like a $10,000 copay.”

Julie denies it. Shady is emphatic. This time, I believe Julie. If you can’t trust a lawyer, who can you trust?

Your body is amazing the abuse it will tolerate. Shady had two stents put in the main artery to his heart. Don’t know about you but when I hear main artery I think 405 and Storrow Drive and Jersey Turnpike. I don’t think pasta.

Turns out, the main artery is the diameter of spaghetti. The rest are smaller than that.

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Today Shady is 100% healthy. He lost 40 pounds, going from extra large to medium, and, as previously noted, his intake is a matter of public record. All of that and he is the rare patient who has been deprescribed (but for a daily baby aspirin to ensure the blood keeps flowing through his stents.

Inspired by Shady, I want my arteries to look like the graphic on the right. Is it too late?

It is not too late. It is also not too easy. But, now that I am mindful, I can play psychological tricks on myself.

• Method No. 1

  • Every time I am attacked by a craving for junk food, I dial back the pictures in my mind right away, what am I doing to my blood stream? Adding death to it or keep it clean? The picture literally stops me in my tracks. Junk food magically loses its allure.

• Method No. 2

  • Everybody dies. A few of us, like Shady, die more than once. I ask myself: “Self—how do you want to die?

    • A miserable slow death from years of self-inflicting junk food to my blood stream?

    • Or a fast death from old age still vibrant to the day before?

  • Do I want to put my family through the misery of taking care of me and seeing me deteriorate in the end?

  • How do I want the quality of my life to be when I reach 70 years old, sitting on a wheel chair aching with pain all over my body or still active in what I love to do?

• Method No. 3

  • The Shiny & Shady System.

    • The reason Shady and I became partners is that we are both system designers. Shady’s system got rid of my cravings, including wedge salad. I no longer drink my caramel macchiato, which I came to learn was like a Big Mac in a mug. I no longer eat Pepperidge Farm buttery shortbread cookies.

I am cynical now. I ask questions like, “Where exactly is this cookie farm?!” I’ve heard of pick you own berries, pick your own pumpkins or apples or nose. Never heard pick your own cookies! Not even once!

Now that I’ve given up all eating — just kidding — now that I am a mindful pro, my head is clear, no more mid-afternoon food comas. Headaches are gone.

Meanwhile, back at Ruth’s Chris, the cognitive dissonance settles and our server politely gives us a minute. I explain the legend of Shady O’Leery, together with my personal transformation from mindless amateur to mindful pro.

The upshot is that instead of half a wedge, we started with four garden salads on four plates with balsamic on the side. The best news is that one of my friends recently joined our cadre of Piehole Pro beta testers.

The moral of the story is you can have a wedge but still have a whole!

Audit your intake!!!

And, whatever you do, for the love of God, always remember Shady’s fateful words, “That’s not Jack in the box. It’s you in the box!”

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