Whatever Happened to Standard Rainbow?

& Other Cosmic Mysteries

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I’ve called this newsletter the Standard Rainbow Hour without explaining what on earth that means.

Those of you who have followed my work for the past few years will remember a brand I started: Standard Rainbow. I worked on the business from 2017 to 2019, at which point the project went silent. Which really means that I went silent.

I was ashamed of the whole affair. A misguided, failed business. Best not to speak of it. And yet I keep the logo on my car (the Chromatic Response Vehicle), and pay for the website. I still occasionally see people on the island wearing Standard Rainbow apparel.

In 2016 I am somewhat chagrined to admit I was in a Tim Ferriss phase. If you’re not familiar with him, he is a productivity guru who has achieved a kind of cult leader status amongst a certain set. He is popular amongst the California tech cadre, amongst ambitious men, amongst productivity fiends obsessed with “ten-Xing” everything from their bank accounts to their diets.

His first big book was The 4-Hour Workweek (2007), which preached “lifestyle optimization” before that was a mainstream thing. It outlined how something called a remote job would work. And how to make a “muse,” a low involvement online business that brings in money but doesn’t eat up personal time.

In fall 2017 I was tumbling down a crevasse, finding my way towards rock bottom. Through lack of a clear plan, I found myself on Orcas Island for my second offseason. In my first two summers on Orcas, I’d been repeatedly warned by veteran seasonal workers to leave. The offseason was described with unconcealed horror. Flee, they said, to India, Thailand, Mexico. GTFO.

I was comically underemployed as a part-time grocery story clerk. I picked up The 4-Hour Workweek at the Orcas Island Library.

In the book I found an alternate universe of high functioning ambition, of secrets to success. And the proof was in the very guru himself. Tim Ferriss was by then a multimillionaire, hobnobbing with influencers and thoughtleaders of all stripes. He was an investor in startups and the burgeoning psychedelic movement. A Macher, a Mensch, a Person. A Big Deal.

And so can you, people!

At least that’s the pitch. That’s why I read the book, and listened to his podcast, and even dabbled in Tony Robbins (the Mighty Guru of Gurus, Success Be Unto Him).

And so, hurtling toward the Bottom, I started a business.

I’d never done an entrepreneurial thing in my life. And I am not what I would call a natural salesperson.

I started with a brainstorm. Obscure World War I camouflage + leggings = digital #nomadlife in Thailand?

Then, being a language person, I agonized over the brand name. Finally, after making list after list, I settled on my first idea, initially a joke: Standard Rainbow. It’s a play on the early mega corporations (Standard Oil, U.S. Steel, etc.) But, you know, colorful. I liked it, and my friends liked it, so I registered it as a business in the State of Washington.

Then I talked to people, I ignored the naysayers (numerous, experienced), I found a printer/manufacturer. By the following summer I was vending at the Orcas Island Farmers Market.

There were a number of small victories along the way: Seeing my prototype on a person for the first time. My first online sale, my first farmer’s market sale. The feeling of receiving cash for something I’d made. Neat.

The money, however, never made sense. One of my mistakes was that I could never figure out online sales. So nearly all of my sales were in person, at the farmers market. This is already not what Tim Ferriss had in mind. And even as an online business concept, it was fatally flawed.

I’ve learned the hard way that direct-to-garment printer/manufacturers are a racket. The process is convenient and easy, but very expensive. It costs about $30 to have a pair of DTG leggings printed and sewn. Thirty dollars is what the customer wants to pay. Even as I got bolder with my markups, at $80 a pair the margin still sucked. Tim Ferriss made his first mountain of money white labeling generic supplements. Basically slapping a label on someone else’s bulk product. His markup was more like the coveted 10x.

But I needed more meaning in my life. Selling supplements didn’t interest me, it seemed predatory, rent-seeking. Of course, that is the point of the Tim Ferriss muse. Dip a cup into the fountain of capitalism, in whatever way is most optimal.

So my strategy was doomed. In two years the business never posted a profit. I recall a $1500 day at the Farmers Market in 2019, but it just didn’t stack against the expenses of having the garments made, paying for the website, the booth, and so on.

Also they don’t tell you how much work it is just to run a small business. In 2018 sales tax laws changed around the country such that online businesses had to pay sales tax in every state in which they sold product. The previous situation was slightly less onerous but still a nightmare and involved words like nexus, and “sales and use.”

I was looking at a mountain of paperwork, or a fat accountant bill. I shut down the shop in the end of 2019. I gave away my stock, a $1000 write-off.

And I never spoke of Standard Rainbow again.

But I kept the logos on my car. I’ve grown to love the name. It has a kind of tuxedo nature, it fits almost anywhere, could be almost anything.

One of the big surprises of making my own brand was that people believed me! I had joke t-shirts made, that read: Standard Rainbow: Paris, Tokyo, Orcas Island. And people would come up to the booth and say, Wow, you have a store in Tokyo?

You guys, people thought Standard Rainbow was real! In spite of my joke origin story, my tongue-in-cheek logo.

So it lives on. My current daydream is to one day name my production company Standard Rainbow. I see white vans with orange hazard lights and the company logo. I see jumpsuits. I see a modernist headquarters. And letterhead, people. Letterhead.

To Saint Ferriss I pray.

NEWEST NEWS

So immediately after bemoaning being trapped in the TikTok doldrums for a couple weeks, one of my videos popped. Over the past week it has soared to 670,000 views, a new record for me. Also my subscriber count passed the 100k mark, to 134,000.

Squirrel now has 16 subscribers who pay him about $170 a month to exist. And once or twice a week a Random Person on the Internet will send me anywhere from 5 to 50 dollars for my Squirrel ministry. I continue to be amazed by the steady trickle of support, for something as ephemeral as art. I also feel this uncomfortable warm feeling, which I suspect is gratitude.

I’ve noticed that viewers really respond to the conversational videos, in which Squirrel and an unseen human talk about life. In the conversations I’ll typically name something that’s weighing on me, or weighing on my viewers (as found in their comments and suggestions). I usually improvise the conversation as I hike through the woods, the puppets and camera gimbal stored in my backpack. Sometimes I run into a hiker while I’m switching between my own voice and the Brooklyn-Boston brogue of Squirrel. I make a very specific expression that communicates that I am sane and not dangerous. Once I’ve verbally sketched an outline, I break out the Talent and the gear and record the conversation. I shoot one to three videos in a session, generally over the course of 2-3 hours.

I’ve resisted scripting the videos because I think it would be extraordinarily difficult to capture the conversational feel in written dialogue. The downside is that the videos tend to meander, and I often miss a key point or two. I’m also relying entirely on knowledge I’ve digested and integrated and can pull from memory. So I stay away from topics that are new or unexplored. The last thing I want to do is talk unskillfully about mental health and healing.

And yet, I find the audience really appreciates the improvised conversations with Squirrel. I continue to be astonished and humbled by how the videos land. There seems to be an enormous hunger for the simple modeling of a compassionate conversation, of an active and kind listener, of a wise and fuzzy mentor.

Sometimes, when I wonder if I am out of my depth, or running out of things to say, I tell myself that I could probably just keep modeling this: Nonjudgment, nonviolence, kindness, and listening, over and over and over again…And it would continue to ripple out, to be of use.

In other news, I’ve applied to two grants, something I’ve been saying I’d do for about 15 years. But the thing is, I actually did it this time.

In his fuzzy paw prints I continue to walk.

HOT LINKS

The TikTok hordes come to Lord Bezos Rides South

Squirrel Dialogues: Do you feel broken?