228: The Portraits Episode
A GREAT time was had by all at our inaugural PodCastaway Retreat with these amazing humans! Saying goodbye was bittersweet, but the retreat weekend was only the beginning of Team 10K helping these new podcasters amplify their voices in the world of podcasting! And our Discord group has kept us right there by their sides for feedback and assistance ever since they left!
Well, you’re never going to get a different answer from me about what I’m obsessed with…DOGS! But, a big dog lover herself, Lulu is currently obsessed with the wide variety of great dogs in NYC. Big, small, wearing costumes or just livin’ the city life…they’re all cute!
Alison is obsessed with watching Steve Harvey’s Family Feud! Randomly coming across a reel online caused her to go down the rabbit hole and it really tickles her funny bone! The things people say are funny enough, but she really loves Steve’s reactions to people.
Lulu wishes for a collection of track suits of varying materials, comfort-level & style. I mean, it just sounds logical, doesn’t it? And easy!
Alison lost her in-ear buds to her chewing pup, but she really wishes for over the ear earphones that won’t fall apart due to sweat or wear & tear. Anyone have any suggestions?
Inspired by a particular portrait, Lulu has chosen Los Angeles, the city she & Alison were in where they received the Magic Word: Portraits. With rapid-fire response to Lulu’s request for a Magic Word, their new friend, Christophe Zajac-Denek said ‘portraits.’ So, thus began the inspired 10K day!
Staying in the Penthouse Suite at the Andaz Hotel , Lulu reveled in the 1,400 square foot luxury with a king bed and magnificent views of the Hollywood Hills. With a private balcony, separate living and dining areas, a wet bar with a wine refrigerator, and 1.5 baths, what’s not to love!? The only way to go in LA when you have 10K to blow is to get driven around by your own First Class Blacklane Los Angeles driver.
Unable to resist the shocking name of this establishment, our egg-loving Lulu had breakfast at Egg Slut, a ‘chef driven, gourmet food concept founded in 2011.’ She chose to get the SLUT. Wait a second…get your minds out of the gutter. I’m talking about the ‘cage-free coddled egg on top of a smooth potato purée, poached in a glass jar, topped with gray salt and chives, served with slices of baguette.’ The place has only two sides, a salad and a salted chocolate chip cookie.
Now, for the inspirational portrait that brought her to LA in the first place…reALIze, a traveling installation that stands as a tribute to the life and cultural significance of Muhammad Ali. It was commissioned by Muhammed Ali and his wife Lonnie in collaboration with Oyler Wu Collaborative and the Artist: Michael Kalish. The installation “…stands 26 feet wide, 23 feet high (at its highest point) and 25 feet deep. The completed project features a metal frame structure, five miles of stainless steel cables and about 1300 speed bags.”
Lunch was at Chifa, where she dined on delicacies from China and Peru. Some menu items ranged from Black Sesame Cheesecake Tart to Alfajores. And just because she could, she brought in a lemon cake from Cake Monkey and treated that to the hard-working staff. Post lunch was a trip to the Travel Time Mart a store in the historic Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. It and the other 826 shops, function as both a retail space and literacy tutoring center. It may look different on the outside, but it houses 826LA, the non-profit organization, where 20-30 students per day are tutored in creative and expository writing. Mostly featuring quirky time travel items, such as Time-Freezy Hyper Slush ice drinks and Wooly Mammoth Chunks, the shop’s visitors can also browse and purchase the students’ publications, which are displayed in a freezer.
When in LA and one needs a dramatic, storytelling portrait, they go to Beauregard Von Hoffman. He just so happens to be a friend of ours, but is also a very talented creative director and photographer. So, Lulu chose to get her portrait taken while on her LA 10K day. And dinner rounded out the day at Fishing with Dynamite, where she could eat seafood to her heart’s content! Frankly, I could fill up on crab legs and lobster, for sure! And, as we all know there is a different stomach for dessert, she enjoyed the pretzel bread pudding.
Inspired by what many would claim to be the world’s most famous portrait, the Mona Lisa by Leonardo daVinci, (housed in Paris at the Louvre) Alison chose the city the portrait’s subject has been rumored to be from…Florence, Italy. Alison stayed at the Brunelleschi Hotel in the Pagliazza Tower Suite, which features a 2 Star 2021 Michelin Guide restaurant, traditional trattoria, breathtaking views of the famous Cathedral and city, and many other 10K style amenities.
And one of those was a delicious breakfast, so next she popped off to see Galileo’s Middle Finger! Yup, you read that right! It’s a museum where his middle finger sits in a small glass egg among lodestones and telescopes. It is the only human fragment in a museum otherwise completely devoted to instruments of science.
In typical 10K duo style, Alison found the Babae Wine Window, a one foot tall and eight inches wide door—just large enough for a flask of wine to pass through where people can purchase wine. So, Alison decided this was a perfect money-making idea for the 10K brand! So, she made a window portrait of her and Lulu drinking wine, rented the space for 6 months, bought a liquor license in FL, and purchased Custom Wine Tumblers. The plan is to exclusively sell Glenlyon wine in the 10K Babae window. Always thinking logistics, Alison bought a Wine Enthusiast 32-Bottle Dual Zone MAX Compressor Wine Cooler to store all the yummy wine as she awaits customers!
Since she imagines this would double as the 10K offices, she did some standard “10K Math”, figuring that she’d profit $1000 from selling through the wine window and that (after dinner at La Buchetta) would then bring her total for the day to…you guessed it…$10,000!
Alison is happy that she’s been able to spend some quality time with her Mom & Dad recently. Speaking from experience, the older you get, the more you know this to be quality time indeed.
Making sure they were properly tested and in an open environment, Lulu was able to enjoy dinner with 2 of our 10K Baes (and good friends!), Jason Wetzel & Greg Monteith in NYC.
CHECK OUT THE CHARITIES WE FOUND IN THE CITIES WE VISITED:
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