Month: January 2019

Life Hacks in 2018

Jocelyn Aucoin asked a great question on Twitter today, and I’m writing a blog post about so it doesn’t get lost in the river of social media posts by tomorrow (here’s the link).

For me it was realizing that opposing vibes can’t exist at the same time.

If I listen to good music, and dance, and fist pump, it’s impossible to stress and worry, so now I just dance all the time.

Sure, I can’t do that 24/7, but I find the more momentum I build throughout the day, the less likely I’m going to fall into any evening funk, which reminds me of some other wise words:

I have a very simple rule that serves me well: Don’t think too much about your life after dinnertime. Thinking too much at the end of the day is a recipe for despair. Everything looks better in the light of the morning. 

Austin Kleon

Lots of Veggie Lo-Mein

Ran into an old friend of mine recently, while they were home for the holidays. They’re a full time musician these days, playing for a pretty prominent indie-rock band, which is awesome. I played in two bands with this dude when I was younger.

But in our early 20s, while me and some friends ran off and got married and bought houses, this friend was couch-surfing in random loft spaces in Brooklyn before loft spaces became big money. He was just making music with friends, and got to tour a bit here and there.

“Lots of veggie lo-mein,” he told me, of that moment in time.

Now, some 15+ years later, he makes music for a living.

Jan 4, 2018 is History

Some links from today’s browser history.

Been messing around with some music production using Abelton Live, and finding some interesting characters on YouTube to learn from. One of them is Sarah2ill, and she’s great.

From Tilt #67 I learned of photographer Drew Kerr who was going to have an exhibition at the Queens Library, but it got cancelled, and raises all sorts of questions about censorship and art.

My first mentor taught me that it is OK to not know how to do something as long as I am willing to learn how to do it. Another taught me the value of “Dance like nobody’s watching; email like it’s being read into a deposition.”

Sarah Wefald

I met Sarah Wefald back around 2008 I think, a time that’s a little hazy because holy crap that was over 10 years ago. We rode bikes with some other music biz pals down to the beach and stuff. She has a nice interview over at Laserfiche, ‘Women in Tech: Championing Innovation as a Technical Product Manager,‘ and continues to be a bad ass.

When I go downstairs in our apartment and all of my recording gear is set up, it’s rare that I don’t at least come up with one idea. If I come back from a show and leave my guitar and pedals packed away, it takes longer for me to get back in a groove of practicing and making demos.

Jeffrey Silverstein at The Creative Independent
via The Creative Mornings email newsletter
Thanks, @billmeis

INTERVIEW: Dumb and Dumbest Podcast

Listen to me talk with Matt Bacon and Curtis Dewar on their ‘Dumb And Dumbest‘ podcast, on the subjects of social media, marketing, internet metrics and more. Click below, or listen over at Ghost Cult Mag.

Some highlights:

  • My continued distrust of Facebook
  • How I stared Buzzgrinder and Noise Creep
  • Building Skull Toaster from the ground up
  • How to build engagement on Twitter
  • Helpful books I’ve read

Let me know your thoughts (hi@sethw.xyz or seth@closemondays.com), or leave a comment over at and have me on your show! Get in touch!

Delete It

How do you handle a new thing? I recently bought a new MacBook Pro, my first new machine since 2014 (and 2009 before that).

 I actually just got a new computer because my old one died. It feels like the first computer I’ve ever had as an adult. It has nothing on it, and every time I download something, every time I add something to it, I’m like, “Do I want this to be on there forever? Or do I just delete it?” I’m deleting a lot of stuff and it feels really good to keep everything clear, to have that lack of clutter.

Emily A. Sprague at The Creative Independent

My photos sit in the cloud, my music streams from Bandcamp and Apple Music. All of my important documents sit on DropBox or Google Drive.

That said, here are a few things I’ve installed on my new machine.

TextExpander: A few keystrokes and whammo, a string of text, a phone number, or a line of code. I use this every single day.

Spark: Holding my breath on this one, but this email app lets me export tasks to Tododist, snooze emails until later in the day (or any date I pick), and schedule emails to be sent (usually at 7am the next day).

Bear: A replacement for my beloved Evernote. Syncs wonderfully between Mac and iPhone, so I can bounce text and code between the two throughout the day as needed.

Todoist: I’ve tried OmniFocus (just too much), and Things (pretty, but I can’t make it work for me), but I’ve fallen hard for this minimal, stripped down to-do app.

Abelton Live: Bass riffs become loops, all easily recorded and sounding great. I only have the Intro version, which works fine for now, but could see upgrading in the new year.

Work When You Work

There isn’t a magical formula for success that relates directly to when you do your best work.

Every roommate I’ve ever had goes to bed around 11, so for me, the night is really nice because everything gets really quiet. I’m a big believer in not going to bed before something’s done, so I usually get around two hours of work in somewhere between 10:30 p.m. and 1:30 a.m. 

Photographer Aundre Larrow at Megenta

I started waking up real early, and started creating at 7 a.m, like real full-on sessions, not just like I’m poking around. I’m in. What I started doing before that was the last move of the night I clean the whole studio. Fill up the water pitcher, when I wake up I have the teapot ready, there’s nothing to do except get started. And I realized there sun’s shining down, you’ve got that pure energy, you’re just up, and all of a sudden it was turning 11 a.m and I hadn’t even looked at my phone and I was like, oh I just learned how to do it. 

Producer Nick Hook at Abelton

If you’re not a morning person, it’s okay. If you’re a night owl, great.

Personally I get up early and get cracking at some work, then I have the rest of the morning and afternoon to tackle my biggest work. And honestly, I’ll let some tasks slide into the early evening, because by then I am motoring, and can buzz through whatever else is on my to-do list.

Hello, Clarice

The “Fansville” Dr. Pepper commercials are amazing. I can’t believe these companies have so much money they can afford to make TV-series quality footage just to sell sugar water, but hooooray, capitalism!

The premise here is someone stole a trophy, and the sheriff goes around town trying to find the culrpit. Note the last guy in this clip, and his delivery of, “hello, Sheriff.”

That has to be a nod to ‘The Silence of the Lambs,’ right?