Entrepreneurship 101
So Dragon’s Den Rejected My ‘Jacuzzi Suit’
Those rich bastards
It’s not surprising, really, given the history of the project.
I first had the idea while bathing in a very high-quality jacuzzi at Spike Lee’s house in the summer of 2012.
Bruce Willis was sitting opposite me with a cigar and a glass of champagne. He blew smoke in my direction and I coughed my lungs up. He knew I was allergic to cigar smoke.
Bruce has always been a little aggressive in a fun kind of way.
Once I was driving him to the opening of Die Hard with a Vengeance because he was drunk. Some cops pulled up next to us, and Bruce punched me in the groin as hard as he could.
I made a noise like a dying fox with a megaphone, and the cops turned and looked at us.
Bruce thought it was hilarious because I had just over a pound of weed in the boot wrapped in potpourri and fourteen layers of plastic. It still stunk up to five metres away.
Fortunately, Bruce gave them a wave, and they gave him the thumbs up and drove off. I mean, who the fuck is gonna arrest John McClane?
Yippee ki YAY Motherfuckas.
Anyhow, Bruce had just blown smoke in my face, and he said to me:
Frankie, my Boy. If only I could stay in this jacuzzi all night instead of having to go to this damn cocktail party.
He slammed his fist in the water and looked at me like I was Hans Gruber.
That’s when it came to me — the jacuzzi suit.
It’s a suit, and yet it’s a jacuzzi or to put it another way, it’s a jacuzzi that you wear.
The next day I built a prototype.
I put out an ad for a student tester on a noticeboard at UCLA.
I got a few enquiries, but I chose a young lad with long ginger hair like Fred and George Weasley in The Goblet of Fire. He fancied himself as a bit of a ladies man and felt like the Jacuzzi suit could add to his charm.
Sadly, something went wrong with the thermostat, and the jacuzzi boiled his bollocks.
The poor kid couldn’t get the damn thing off.
To make matters worse, he was in the middle of chatting to some beautiful lass at a party, and he ended up chucking his Watermelon Bacardi Breezer all over her.
I paid the bastard. He wanted $100, but I only had $67 left, so I gave him $50 and bought him a kebab.
Mark II was much better. I fixed the thermostat, but I was still damn nervous.
I tested it at the launch of Tom Cruise’s Oblivion.
Tom himself congratulated me on the model. He offered to pitch it to some of his friends once I had a few more buyers. That night I got orders from Simon Pegg, Benicio Del Toro and Andy Garcia. For some reason, none of the women ordered.
Andie McDowell said she wanted to, but she gets itchy from jacuzzis.
I tried to tell her that was just part of the game. At that point, I had been in the suit for two hours and forty-five minutes.
I was itching like a meth addict, and my skin was peeling like a flaky croissant.
I appeared on Dragon’s Den just over three months later.
I was really nervous and needed to shit about two minutes before going on.
I had eaten a burrito for lunch, and I saw a pink bit of chicken in it but assumed it was just leg meat that stays pink sometimes.
The producer was an absolute cock knocker who told me that I would lose my spot if I went to the toilet.
So I went in front of the Dragons while needing a tremendous shit.
I read my pitch out loud with a vein popping out of my forehead. My stomach ached like never before. Halfway through, I stopped and concentrated, desperate not to let go.
Just need a minute, I whispered to no one in particular.
Are you okay? Duncan Bannatyne asked me.
I’m doing a shit, I replied.
Excuse me, he said in his soft Scottish accent.
I’m doing a shit, I repeated.
I was doing a shit. I couldn’t hold it in any longer.
The Dragons all looked at each other in shock.
The jacuzzi water went ten per cent bubblier than usual, and then the water began to turn brown.
Well, I’m out, Bannatyne said assertively as the room began to fill with a horrid stench.
The rest of the Dragons quickly followed.
I later sold the patent for the Jacuzzi suit to Timothy Dalton. He reckoned it might help with the upper leg problems he had developed during the filming of ‘The Living Daylights’.
I said to him, If only it could help rewrite the script.
We both laughed. That’s Hollywood for ya.
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