Thanks, Abe. Goodbye.
PART THREE
25. BIG DEAL
Know something? The problem with money is I want more
Let’s raise the price at the door. Starting tonight, 3,000 or four
—Minor Threat, “Cashing In”
WHEN THINGS ARE going well, you’re not supposed to ask questions. But I’m a son of immigrants. I have whatever the opposite of entitlement is, where I think I deserve nothing and anything positive has come by way of dumb luck (I think it’s called poor self-esteem).
I’m always bracing for impact. I remember being terrified, as a kid, of what might come careening around the corner after a birthday weekend. I would canvass the sky for that second shoe to drop. And I’d be so distracted by that imaginary shoe that I’d walk straight into a pole. There it is, I’d confirm to myself. I knew that pole was coming.1
I used to believe that life is a series of happy and depressive moments, strung together like Christmas lights. But I’ve come to believe that things happen and you frame them however you choose. What are success and failure other than two sides of the same coin? Trash and treasure. Trials and triumphs. Squint and it’s hard to tell the difference, especially through the lens of time.
By all accounts, The Hundreds was on a killing spree by the early 2010s. We had taken all of the best boutique accounts by storm; we were being courted by the big-box retailers, who’d coaxed us with tens of millions of dollars. Our stores were firing on all cylinders. Love us or hate us, we were best in show, stealing the headlines, a regular topic of conversation. My blog was read by millions of people, and we were making as many dollars. By our seventh year in business, we were topping $17 million in sales, and climbing. Not bad for a couple of kids who started off with an idea, a few hundred bucks, and some crappy T-shirts.
Then the unsolicited emails with fancy signatures arrived: “To Whom It May Concern, we represent Big Brother Capital, and we’d like to talk to the owners of The Hundreds about their future plans.”
Older industry friends started making the intros: “Are you guys looking for investment? I know someone who’s interested in working with a brand like yours.”
All of a sudden, there were “gray-hairs” up in our business:
Silicon Valley tech investors seeking to diversify their portfolios.
Venture capitalists looking for something a bit more traditional than apps and dot-coms.
Hedge fund managers who wanted something cool in their pocket to wow their teenage sons.
And old-school fashion garmentos who were hoping to climb out of a dying industry.
“Always take the meeting,” our friend DJ Thee Mike B once told us.
At worst, you get a free Caesar salad and some experience. At best, you walk away from the table with a business deal. I felt weird leaving the designer’s desk or getting off the Rosewood curb and spending my days and evenings with these opportunists. To fake-laugh through jokes, repeating our story from an emotional angle while Ben broke down the hard numbers investors really wanted to see. It was just about the most uncreative part of my job. But I always took the meeting.
These courtships always caught fire, like hot and heavy make-out sessions, like two teens tearing at each other’s clothes, overwrought and eager to explore. Once we were disrobed, however, we were unimpressed with what we saw. Either that, or we’d stopped ourselves from waking up to a regretful morning.
First, there was Howard, the early Starbucks investor guy. Howard was old and kind, like a familiar neighbor, and we often met him at Nate’n Al’s deli, where Larry King eats breakfast in the mornings. I think Howard was amused by us. We were feral and unformed, wild kids running around town selling T-shirts. He was accustomed to much larger food deals, fueling Starbucks’ explosive growth, Krispy Kreme, and doing the same for the Pinkberry frozen yogurt chain. He introduced us to one of his partners, Young Lee, Pinkberry’s cofounder, to answer any questions we had about their partnership. Young was a bold and honest Korean American entrepreneur with thick-framed designer glasses and a flair for expensive things. In their younger New York days, he’d worked retail with Undefeated’s Eddie Cruz and Supreme’s James Jebbia, so he “got” us and what we were trying to accomplish. He found the potential deal between Howard and The Hundreds interesting, and that meant a lot because Pinkberry was hotter than an Emily Ratajkowski pictorial at the time. They had sneaker-reseller-type lines into the night, except they were selling creamy dessert with cereal toppings.
Our numbers weren’t hefty, but their momentum was staggering, and that intrigued both Howard and Will. Will—a mutual friend of ours whose son was a fan of our brand—had set up those initial meetings. He was captivated by the volume we were pushing out of our store. He’d sit outside our L.A. shop on Saturday afternoons and marvel at the perpetual demand. Ben and I didn’t know any better—we had built it, they had come—but Howard and Will had been in retail for years and hadn’t seen anything like it. That enthusiasm transferred. Ben and I licked our lips over the cash payout, but we also daydreamed about a Starbucks version of The Hundreds. We envisioned nationwide The Hundreds stores, kitted out like complete lifestyle emporiums, with multiple floors like Urban Outfitters or Muji and all goods designed and branded by The Hundreds. Of course, we’d have clothing, but we’d also publish our own books, produce our own recording artists, and even make bedding and housewares.
Over the months, however, Howard lost interest in The Hundreds, his shiny plaything. I don’t remember why. Maybe he was never convinced at all. We were only six years in at that point. We were so amateur; none of the numbers made sense (even to us). The Hundreds was still just a reckless art project. A few years later, Young, the Pinkberry guy, beat up a homeless man with a tire iron2 and got sentenced to seven years behind bars. Crisis averted.
* * *
THERE WAS the hedge fund guy (to be honest, I still don’t know what that means) who I’ll call Roger. He was Republican and, by all indications, rich. A puffier John Edwards with the same penchant for extramarital affairs. The first time we met up, we found him in the bowels of the Cut’s steak-house bar, sloshing around whiskey in a tumbler. He was reaching for the cocktail waitress, half to feel, half to hold on. By the time we led him to our table and ordered our main course, Roger was literally asleep in the chair. Ben and I rolled our eyes. This douchebag wanted to offer us millions to invest in The Hundreds, but who the hell wanted him as a partner? More than the money, if we were to join forces with anyone, we needed someone with experience. A friend first, but also a mentor who could connect us with resources and wisdom. This man couldn’t handle his liquor. How could he handle The Hundreds?
There were two venture capitalists, I’ll call them Cyrus and Gordon, who were collecting brands in the action sports industry but also toying with streetwear. It was trendy at the time for money guys to swallow up factions of up-and-coming brands simultaneously across different markets, and The Hundreds made a colorful pairing with a contemporary denim brand or action sports company. We were hot and we were hype. As owners, we came fully loaded with juris doctor brains, sans addictions. There was this sexy tech element around my blog editorial and video content, and the brand wasn’t tied to any one specific demographic. Streetwear was a panacea for a segregated market. White surf kids in Mission Viejo adopted streetwear, Filipinos in Daly City lined up for it, black kids in the South lived in it. “Skateboarding,” “urban”—all of a sudden these demarcations didn’t apply only to the young men’s market.3
We went back and forth with Cyrus and Gordon for the better part of a year, but in the end we threw up our hands. This time, everything was in the right place except for the number. Ben and I were valuing our business at the $20 million mark, but these guys were lowballing us at around $15 million. Of course, they weren’t factoring in our emotional attachments. We also knew the potential, because we had intentionally refrained from selling to bigger box stores in the mall at that point. Plus, w
e foresaw The Hundreds’ next venture as a media-rich content platform. Our hopes were to make the blog an editorial showcase with contributors from around the world, like VICE, but more culture-specific. Eventually, we’d produce video content and become our own studio.
Gordon and Cyrus weren’t interested in the content portion of our business, however. We were looking too far forward. Today, multi-hyphenate businesses are the rule, but back then the private equity world didn’t know how to value brands that straddled multiple lanes—what to do with a clothing line that was also a media company? Their lack of vision and the valuation gap separated us by oceans, and we reluctantly went our separate ways. They ended up scooping up a couple skate brands and dumping them shortly after, eviscerating companies like junk cars and selling them for parts and scrap metal. If we had gone with those guys, The Hundreds would have died a long time ago.
Then there was Tommy. No last name needed and truly one of my most favorite people in fashion. Although he had sold his own namesake brand, Tommy Hilfiger remained in charge of the label as principal designer. The Tommy Hilfiger brand was also poised for a comeback as the nineties reared its head twenty years later. I used to wear a lot of Tommy in high school. This had less to do with Aaliyah and all to do with the preppy sportswear look that was trendy in skate (a response to the sloppy, rave style of the early nineties).
Imagine my astonishment walking into Ben’s office one day and seeing Tommy Hilfiger on his couch. Tommy wanted a tour of our building first. We traced our decorative history and introduced him to the team. He rifled through our prototypes in the showroom and made insightful commentary. He thought we could really use an icon, maybe a flag like his.4 I had always admired Tommy’s subtle design accents, like a lime-green bar tack or unexpected trim. I employed some of these touches in our earlier cut-and-sew collections. It was cool to have the man himself acknowledge them.
We met a lot with Tommy and culled as much sage advice from him while we could. I really liked him. Not only did he offer experience and resources, but also we gelled with the man. He was soft-spoken and deliberate. We trusted his vision for our brand’s growth, not far from what he was able to accomplish with his own. It made a lot of sense. He drew comparisons between him and Ralph Lauren, and us and Supreme. We even shared the same initials with Tommy Hilfiger. Of all the scouts, Tommy got the closest—to the point where we had the papers laid out in front of us.
There was one glaring complication, though, that quietly snuck up behind us and eventually smothered the deal. It was a small problem at first, like a nagging bellyache, and all parties did our best to ignore it. But as negotiations matured and our due diligence moved further into the year, we had to address the dilemma: Business was tanking. At first, the reports looked like miscalculations and computer glitches. Then all of the signals started working in concert, and we knew it wasn’t a coincidence. The numbers didn’t lie: The Hundreds’ sales figures were inexplicably backsliding. International orders were plunging, and our online shop lurched. Troublesome vibes radiated from the business. Although our clothing was hotter than ever on the streets, inside the organization we were running a glorified trap house. The Hundreds had grown so fast that we’d never taken the time to pour the concrete, draw up a sound frame for our home, and implement strategy. We were patching holes with chewing gum, and the cards came tumbling down. One by one, and then all at once.
26. DON’T GET ME WRONG
Don’t wait for the call
Strength above all
—Agnostic Front, “Strength”
“CHING CHONG, CHINAMAN! Look at this nerdy bitch. Shouldn’t you be doing my math homework?”
I hated Josh. Every day, my third-grade friends and I would line up at the tetherball court and wait our turn to play against the school bully. Josh was in the sixth grade but taller than my dad and with a pencil-thin mustache. He was a dead ringer for Shaggy from Scooby-Doo, but freckly and ginger. I don’t know what was going on at home, but Josh was angry and messy. Sometimes, he’d show up to school with a bruised eye or a broken tooth. Unsurprisingly, Josh had no friends, and he seemed to really enjoy tormenting all the brown kids on the playground.
In back-to-back rounds, Josh wiped out Omar and Cruz, the Salvadoran twins whom he nicknamed “the Mexican jumping beans.” And now I was up to the plate.
“I’m gonna kick your ass, you little oriental biscuit,” he snarled. And then he followed through on his promise. Josh was so big and his arms so long that he spun the tetherball around the top of the pole in seconds. I could do nothing but stand there and watch as the ball wound up. Josh cackled like a banshee as I put my head down and returned to the back of the line. Why did Josh hate me so much? Was it just because I was an oriental biscuit? And what the hell is an oriental biscuit?
Bobby, meet racism.
It’s like when you buy a car and then notice that car everywhere. Except this was prejudice, and once Josh drew a fat red box around our skin color difference, I couldn’t help but see that line dividing rooms that had previously looked mixed and colorful like a rainbow.
* * *
I CALLED him Juggernaut. Raymond was a stocky half-white, half-Mexican kid who was friendly with all the blockhead jocks. He was the most athletic and coordinated in class, but he was also just a major asshole. Raymond punked all the weird kids during PE, like my skater friends, the goths, and the skinheads. He played dirty on the field and would steamroll anyone who got in his way like Refrigerator Perry. Thus, “Juggernaut.”
One afternoon, as we were doing our stretches, he and his friends sat down next to me and taunted, “Hey, do you know any karate? I bet you know Mr. Miyagi.” Raymond pulled his arms back and emulated the crane kick from The Karate Kid.
“Yup,” I lied, just to shut his hole up. “I’m a black belt.”
“Yeah, right. I’d love for you to try that shit on me,” he said as he feigned a karate chop within an inch of my face. “Hi-yaaaa!”
Raymond’s friends busted up and my throat closed. So did my fists.
“What’s wrong? Gonna cry?” He stood up and bumped his chest to mine.
I looked him square in the eye, exhaled, and said, “Nah, man. It’s all good. We’re just playin’.”
I turned around. All these guys giggling, getting over on me, the lone Korean kid on the blacktop. There were only a handful of Asian Americans in school, and we weren’t seen for anything else but a punch line. In the wake of Pearl Harbor, and the Vietnam War, and as Japanese auto plants stole homeland jobs, American media in the 1980s and ’90s depicted Asians as a defenseless political cartoon—exotic martial arts experts, clueless FOBs, or sexless geeks—framing us as the enemy and keeping us outside the American portrait. Raymond presumed the same—that I was an easy target, that I’d sit there and take it like the feeble “oriental” characters on TV.
It was Tuesday, so flag football day. I tied the belt of red vinyl strips around my waist into a knot. This was a total cheat move; we were supposed to attach the ends together with Velcro so they could be easily torn off if we got “tackled.” But all the kids did it when the coach wasn’t watching.
My quarterback had the football and was searching the field for an opening. Raymond was on the yellow team, and at the first snap he started charging me. I wasn’t even near the ball, but he beelined it for my flags, and I stepped out of his way just in time.
I looked back. “What the hell, dude?”
He just grunted and moved back into position.
This time, the quarterback did huck the ball in my direction, but Raymond ran behind me and yanked me down by my flag before I could even jump up. Because the belt was twisted and locked into my hip, I crashed hard on my ass.
By now, the other kids noticed what was going on. Raymond was seeing red. He had it out for the Karate Kid. Whenever the ball was in play, both teams danced around it, and let him charge me like a deranged bull.
Then his team intercepted the ball and the moment
um shifted.
“Hike!” the yellow team’s QB leaned back and launched a Hail Mary far downfield. Raymond stood there, all alone, waiting with open arms. His mouth was bent into a crooked smile, his coal-black eyes clung onto the spiral as the ball arced and homed in on his chest with a soft thud. He tucked the football under his left arm, pivoted 180 degrees, and lunged down the sideline to the end zone.
Except I T-boned him.
When the quarterback released the ball, I was already rushing Raymond. While everybody else was skirmishing with each other, chasing their tails, I cut loose from the pack and hightailed it for Juggernaut. He didn’t see the angry Asian kid coming. Nobody did. They were all focused on the ball. Half a second after it landed in his arms, all 145 pounds of me met Raymond in his midsection.
Our bodies collided and tumbled in the dirt. I didn’t give him time to catch his breath. I flipped over like a crab and pounced on top of him, my knuckles battering down like a hailstorm. One by one, my fists sank into his cheek, his chin, his nose. It was only a few seconds before the coaches pried me off, but I got hours inside there. My eyes opened wide to take it all in, watching Raymond’s face contort and wince in full detail as I landed my blows like target practice. He never said a word to me after that, didn’t come near me.
* * *
STEREOTYPES ABBREVIATE a human being into an abstraction—one that is, more often than not, completely wrong and ignorant. It’s not just belittling; it’s dehumanizing. And it goes back to what I said at the outset of this book: We are engineered to find one another, to love and support the other, and build community. But hate (like racism or misogyny or homophobia) drives people apart. If you think you know the entirety of someone by the color of their skin, their sexual orientation, their gender, or their class, then you cheat them of the opportunity to be heard.
This Is Not a T-Shirt Page 18
