I’m going into seclusion


I’ll be going dark until my big appearance with Woz in Menlo Park tonight. I’ll be huddling with my advisors, working on my presentation, doing my elocution exercises and practicing saying “Boom” a thousand times until I get it just right. We’ve built an exact replica of Kepler’s bookstore in a spare building on the Apple campus, and I’ll be rehearsing for much of the day. I’m still trying to get my entrance perfect. I open the curtain, and I step out — but do I go right foot first, or left foot? It’s exactly seventeen paces from the curtain to the lectern. I’ve tried both ways and neither one feels right. We’re bringing in a stage-walking consultant to help with this. Our gesture consultant knows him and says he’s fantastic. He’s worked with lots of celebrity CEOs to get that natural stride, the one that says, Hey, I’m here, I’m important, and I want you to look at me, but I’m not going to let you know that I want you to look at me, in fact I’m going to act like I don’t want you to look at me, or that I don’t care whether you look at me or not because I’m just so huge and important that it doesn’t matter whether anyone ever looks at me, even though everyone always does.

After rehearsal I’ll be doing some yoga and meditation. Then I’ve got my colorist coming in to work on my beard and hair until I get the perfect salt-and-pepper ratio.

Meanwhile we’ve got a crew going over to Kepler’s to tape out my spots on the floor and hang black curtains and a giant screen that will have a fifty-foot letter X projected on it behind me. Adding to the confusion, we’re also haggling with the folks at HBO who are trying to get in to tape the footage for a special. Well, it’ll be my first public appearance with Woz in about twenty years so I guess it’s kind of a historic occasion in the Valley and worth putting on film.

See you all there, I hope. Much love. Peace out. Namaste. I honor the place where your spirit and mine become one — in this case, at Kepler’s bookstore on El Camino Real in Menlo Park.