The secret revealed in "ancient manuscripts"!
Watching Shark Tank eats up time like Armie Hammer does a date.
Still, we watch.
Did you see last night’s episode?
Big-wave surf champion, model, and now entrepreneur Nic Lamb pitching his new product, Ice Beanie.
I will not insult your intelligence here. The Ice Beanie is exactly what you think it is: a beanie with cold gel packs to push over your skull when you’re overtaken by a headache.
Kevin O’Leary shrugged.
I sorta liked it.
Mark Cuban did, too, and bit quick, scooping up 25% of his fledgling company.
As the segment starts, Nic, decorated in mandatory Hawaiian shirt, boardies and bare feet, rolls in on some sort of soft top affixed to a skateboard. He hops off, shares his impressive bio, then immediately shows a clip of him getting crushed on a wave at Mavericks “six or seven stories” tall.
Lamb describes the experience as “being in an underwater train wreck.”
He follows it up with a brilliant, “It’s awesome!”
With the exception of the perfectly coifed Lorie, they all slip them over their domes, smiling, surely fantasizing what it would be like to be Lamb.
But they’re not. They’re five old suits with oversized poly-pro buckets on their heads.
But they can afford to look stupid.
And we smile, too, fantasizing what it would be like to be them.
The Sharks pepper Nic with the usual questions: How long have you sold them? How much to they cost? What are your sales to date? Did you have shoes on the plane ride in? (I made the last one up but was curious all the same.)
The big question might be: Is this the best invention of the surfer’s mind?
I’ve got an idea, boys. You know when your head hurts? When ya’ get headaches? What about a hat with pouches for Advil? No, wait. Pouches for ice!
If you go to the Ice Beanie website there’s a whole section on the science behind the complexities that underpin the Ice Beanie.
The website gives a bunch of fluff about cryotherapy.
But we already know about Laird’s devotion to Wim Hoff. We already know what our grandmothers told us about cold compresses to quell the vapors. Spare us, please, Dr. lamb.
Maybe more intriguing than selling frozen hats is the narrative tacitly continued by Nic regarding surfers. We often wonder why common folk consider us simple or why there’s never been a Hollywood film that captures our perceptions of surfing.
Because Lamb, tan, dynamic, and perpetually happy, acts the caricature with honesty and aplomb.
It is what it is.
But as trite as Lamb might have appeared on camera, we’re wise to two things:
First, surfers actually do dream up some pretty sophisticated crap. Anyone remember San Clemente shaper Pete Arslanian? No college education, developed a piece that’s now on space shuttles.
Second, Lamb ain’t simple.
He knew he could hypnotize the Sharks, he just had to play the part for the hook.
And, of course, it worked. Good for Nic. He’ll be set.
It makes me want to think up an invention. The only thing springing to mind currently is tossing my Cordell Flexfit in the freezer and see what happens.
What inventions would you pitch on Shark Tank and make you slobbering rich?
