Sleeping with Izabel Goulart of Victoria's Secret

Yesterday I modeled a set of proto-type men's dozer gear at a Victoria Secret Sleepwear roadshow in Clearwater Florida. The rookie V Secret models were all giggles at the opportunity to share the run way with me. I had a long talk with Izabel Goulart about the pro and cons of sleeping in the nude year round. Not a conversation I wanted to have but her broken english was sweeter than a sugar plum dream. She said something like, but "I don't like pajamas womens." You mean women's pajamas. I almost didn't want to correct her. We quarralled over the issue for an hour or two. Finally, we both agreed to sleep it off in 15 minute head-to-head power nap. I was all set to school her but I waited for her to sink deep into the dozer zone before I did. While I watched her drift off into a soft Victoria's slumber I thought better of it and let her win.

Fredericks of Hollywood Promotional Appearance

Just finished a Q & A and autograph session at Fredericks of Hollywood in the Mall of America. Same questions as every tour. "Is an 800 thread count sheet actually any better than 350 thread count sheets?" The answer is no. When you cram that many threads per square inch your fabric actually balls off so your sheets shed. Would I recommend women's fleece sleepwear over natural fibers for a trip to Peru? Absolutley. Fleece handles variable temperatures and sweat like a dream. It's tough being in front of a crowd day in and day out when all you can think about is competing. I'm always the diplomat. I mean dozing is my life. The last thing I want to do is lose my cool and give a fan or casual sleeper a bad experience and give them insomnia. What kind of a Pro-Dozer spreads insomnia?

Even as I'm disqualified from the Global-Sleeper-Cross I still hold that it is the responsibility of the Pro-Dozer to promote good rest and that means keeping your cool when a PR woman from Canyon Crest Bedding shows up at a live broadcast Q & A session and tries to lead me into plugging her brand. Sleep is pure but not as pure as it was. When I closed out the session I could help but ask myself if we're jeopardizing the gift of sleep as we let commerce intersect with our dreams. Where should an athlete draw the line between pure competition and a job?

BW

Barrett Williams Returns from Global Sleeper Retreat

The man that slept around the world in 180 days

Groggy apologies to all you dozers and dozer fans who must have felt so abandoned for last 9+ months that spanned my dozer training expedition. I had to put myself under the radar, off the map and into the global dreamscape. As many of you already know, the first Global Sleeper Cross will drift into gear on December 21 2006, or the night of this year’s Winter solstice.

But the guilt I feel at having left my legions of supporters without warning is only tempered by my success over the last months. Where was I? TRAINING. Yes. The best dozers sleep the hardest because they train. But before I go any further I have to thank my sponsors, The North Face, Dakine, Coleman, Volkl, and CamelPak for supporting what is sure to become a ritual and rite of passage for all competitive dozers world wide. My seminal Global Sleeper Retreat takes the street level approach and the “anywhere-anytime” attitude of New School dozing to a global, geographical, geological and absolutely sociological level that anticipates the future inter-planetary dozing. Trust me – I might be in my final sleep by the time the federation permits inter-planetary dozing. But mark my words. We all dream in space and will all dream in space. See where I’m coming from? Now I know I’m ranting like a world class surfer but then I remember that it was Vince Lombardi that said that “every dream is a wave and every wave a dream.” Ahhh. Vince. See. It takes a legend like Vince Lombardi to convince the world that dozers and surfers inhabit the same zones.

We’ve talked about training before so I don’t need to stress the importance of sleeping on site. Testing beds. Surfaces. Understanding the air flow of your sleep zone. I will cover all these things and more as I detail a few of the custom training sessions that I created specifically for the Global Sleeper Cross.

Night
BW

Jr. Dozers Awards Banquet

I was the guest speaker at the Jr. Dozer Awards Banquet this afternoon. It was a surprise and an honor to voted Dozer Role Model of the Year again. But accolades aside I wanted this crowd to understand that I'm not the teacher here. When the does the teacher become the student you ask? Well I have always been the student and regardless of my competitive record and my years on the circuit, I can say... Well actually let me give you a direct quote from my speech today.

"I'm honored that this audience, these Dozers, the future of sleeping, the future of dreaming as it were, would look on me at their role model. Me? I mean I sleep for a living (crowd will laugh lightly). But as I stand up here on this podium I step aside. (step to left) I step aside to all the little sleepers out in this audience who put their dreams to the test every night when they click their own snooze button. I have to say that I think it's ironic that I'm the 'role model' of the year, because truth be told, I can learn more from taking a one hour training nap with new school dozers like yourselves than I could teach you in life-time. "

It was just after Thankgiving and they served Turkey loaf. I wasn't surprised that most of the parents hinged their conversations on the Tryptophan doping scandal that plagued the league. That was almost two years ago. I tested negative. Enough. On top of that my physicians have documented the fact that I'm violently allergic to turkey...