Inside/Outside

My brother tells me that if I get in shape and lose weight, my business will grow and I will make more money. I mean, that is pretty good motivation to get in shape and lose weight, right? Except my business isn’t really dependent on what I look like—I am literally the man behind the curtain with the newsletter and books and money management business, and I do very little gripping and grinning in person. Getting in shape and losing weight is important to him, because he works in sales. The short version of the story is that I am less focused on appearance than I used to be, which I think is an indicator of psychological health. I mean, there was a book written about not giving a fuck, right? And I think everyone’s goal is to someday not give a fuck, when in fact they currently give lots of fucks? I do not care. I will walk into a meeting with stringy gray hair and tattoos, with the attitude that what you see is what you get. I mean, Madoff put on a suit. He looked the part. By the way, the guy who wrote the book about not giving a fuck works out all the time and posts shirtless selfies on Instagram. He gives a fuck.

Still, I am not an idiot, and I know that signaling is important, and how you look and what you wear is really a means of communication about what you want people to think of you. It’s not that I don’t cultivate an image, because I do. When I went on my writing retreat to Mississippi, I took a selfie in front of Square Books in Oxford in the wind, with my hair all over the place, and put it on Twitter, and two people in the replies said, “You look like a writer.” Bingo bango. That is what I am aiming for. Another person said, “You look like shit,” which is not really what I’m aiming for, but that takes us back to square one of the board game, which is: do you give a fuck, or not? I’d rather look like shit than look like standard issue Wall Street guy, or standard issue Southern White Guy, which are two possibilities I could explore. It’s funny—my Wall Street friends on Facebook also carefully cultivate their images—the perfect families in the perfect clothes on the perfect vacations. You get me as I am, warts and all.

That’s not to suggest that these two things are mutually exclusive—you can be in good shape (for health reasons) and also not give a fuck. Some people tell me I will live longer if I work out and lose weight. Well, maybe, and maybe that is the reason some people work out, but I suspect that 90% of people do it for vanity reasons. If you have a great body, it doesn’t make much sense to cover it up all the time, right? I was just in Vegas, and I saw lots of heavily muscled guys in tank tops. They weren’t wearing a muumuu. By the way, if you wear the functional equivalent of a muumuu, then you are signaling that you have just given up, so I am just disciplined enough to not have to shop at the Haggar big and tall store. I have a 38 waist. Brothers try to front, but everybody knows, I get more props than the Arsenio Hall show.

I think what we are looking for is the concept of being comfortable in your own skin. When I was in my 20s, if I was going out to the pool, I would do 100 push-ups first, to blow up my pecs. Now, no fucks are given. I don’t have anything to prove. Also, there is sort of an inverse relationship between fitness and wealth—if you’re spending all your time in the gym, you’re spending less time making money. With the exception of entertainers and athletes, whose job it is to work out all the time, if you see someone who is ripped, chances are they have a credit score below 620. Here is a question for you: do you know any billionaires who are ripped? Maybe Bill Perkins or Dan Bilzerian, but last I heard they were a bit short of being billionaires. I personally cannot think of any billionaires who are ripped. Did you see that picture of Elon with his shirt off? Exactly. Dude could spend $10 million a year on his body and doesn’t bother. He’s got cool clothes, but that’s about the extent of it. And women are lining up like in the DMV to have his kids.

Age is part of it, too. At age 51, it’s not really your role in society anymore to be the sperminator. As a fifty-year-old male and onwards, you’re not trying to dip your wick all the time—your job is to provide wisdom and guidance to younger generations. Anytime I see an older man get wound up in a sexual harassment scandal, I just have to smile to myself. Grow up! I think there is a part of every man who thinks that, deep down, they are still 26 years old. They still got it. You do not, in fact, “still got it.” I could write a lot more about this, but let’s just say that I am rooting for Cuomo for mayor. I think he has done his penance, and I don’t want that communist to win. I suppose we should talk about Bill Belichick. I mean, everyone is talking about Bill Belichick. I try not to make any assumptions about these sorts of things, because the heart wants what the heart wants, and I don’t necessarily think that large age differences in couples are de facto evil, but Jesus Christ. Anyway, she’s there of her own free will.

So do I really not give a fuck? Yes, I can say that I honestly don’t give a fuck what people think, except in one situation: at the pool. I will no longer take off my shirt. Nobody needs to see that. There are lots of old fat guys who take their shirt off at the pool, and there are even old fat guys who will wear Speedos. They are definitely comfortable in their own skin. I will cop to not being comfortable in my own skin in this situation, and a lot of it is nostalgia for my 20s and 30s when I looked like Adonis and I was doing push-ups before going outside. It is all too bad. It's not a handicap in any way—I actually like the heat and I don’t really get hot. Instead of doing the Triple Lindy off the diving board, I’ll sit in my chair and read a book, or bring my laptop out to the pool and write something. But yeah, I don’t like taking my shirt off. When I do the calculus on how many hours of work and effort it would take to get to a point where I can take my shirt off again, it just makes me exhausted. Maybe I will get there someday. I always wonder about guys who post pictures online with their shirts off. I don’t see any fat guys doing that. How did these pictures come about? Were they just chilling at the pool, and their wife snapped a picture? Is there posing involved? I get it, you’re proud of your body. You also give a fuck.

The goal here is for your insides to match your outsides. If you are 30 pounds overweight, and you are happy, then nobody will notice. If you are 30 pounds overweight, and you are sad, then everyone will notice. I just performed at the Palm Tree Beach Club at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. 51-year-old fat guy as the opening DJ. People loved the music. I commented to my friend Mike that you don’t see too many fat DJs (outside of Carl Cox and hip-hop), and he said to me: “It seems to be working for you.” Maybe I can change my DJ name into a fat joke, but I think that has already been done. There was a hipster deep house DJ years ago named Eats Everything. He looked like he ate everything. I will confess that I am jealous of people who look like they have the metabolism of a hummingbird. I am cursed with bad genetics and old-school medieval psych meds.

I think what I’m saying here is: don’t be shallow. And don’t judge a book by its cover. Now having said all that, I’m not going to be like one of these ugly academics who says that appearance doesn’t matter, it’s what’s on the inside that counts. What a load of crap. Good-looking people are frequently happy and confident, and happy and confident people are frequently good-looking. But I know a thousand guys at Lehman Brothers who worked out at 3:30 in the morning and put on $4,000 suits who couldn’t think their way out of a paper bag. They are all selling insurance now. It’s what’s in that fantastic little brain of yours that counts. Good-looking is good, but smart beats good-looking every time. And if you are really worried about being ugly, there are things you can do—appearance is like anything else, it’s work and effort (and money). But I don’t see myself ever getting plastic surgery. Two dumb ways to die: on an amusement park ride, and on an operating table getting liposuction. I’m not risking my life for vanity.