Month: February 2026

BUYING RTJ4 IN DIGITAL FORMAT

I’ve been listening to RTJ4 on and off since it came out in 2020. Five years, and I haven’t paid a dime to anyone in the Run The Jewels camp.

You can buy the digital album directly from the artist via their own website, which puts the most money in their pocket (Apple takes a cut, Amazon takes a cut, every download store takes a cut). This album isn’t even available on their Bandcamp page.

HOW NOT TO LAUNCH A CONTENT HUB

Jesus christ on a stick, this is amatuer hour.

I found via The Trend Report that Kamala Harris is launching Headquarters, “the new Gen-Z led progressive content hub.”

The announcement video was posted on the official HQ Twitter account (here), a 28 second video clip made in a conference room explaining that it’s where you’ll find the latest of what’s going on, and meet and revisit with courageous leaders.

No mention of the URL, or any sort of call to action. Just to “stay engaged” and “I’ll see you out there.”

So the HQ Twitter profile has a link: headquarters.news, which links to…

… a Substack Welcome page.

This annoying Welcome page “feature” can’t be turned off, but a quick Google search will tell you how to avoid it.

I skipped this by clicking the tiny X in the upper right corner. C’mon, take me to the “the new Gen-Z led progressive content hub” already!

That’s it, folks. That’s the new Gen-Z led progressive content hub.

No video (nah, save that for social media, I guess).

This was posted on Feb 5th, and I’m writing this on the 8th (I guess nothing much has happened since this initial post).

And the Substack About page hasn’t been updated, leaving the generic default text; “Join the crew,” are you kidding me?

How do you launch this without some already published “meet and revisit with courageous leaders” posts, as mentioned in the kick off video?

How do you launch this without having an updated ABOUT page?

How do you launch this without any video, branding, or images?

How do you launch this without links to resources about registering to vote, or how to contact your elected officials?

How do you launch a “content hub” like this in 2026?

THE MAGIC IN THE ROOMS

There is a magic to the rooms. The spaces, the theaters, the clubs, the bars, the back porches.

I came across Roddy Bottum’s “These Rooms,” which was an eloquent journey into all sorts of rooms, weaving the magic with the turmoil, and everything in between.

“The rooms of punk rock, don’t get me started. Where we are as a youth, as a celebration, as a rebel in our lives at the pinnacle of what matters, politically, protesting, being together and the sheer volume of the music as it comes off the stage, the pits, the shine of those shows, the drunk dumbness of becoming who we. become and the strength of that.”

I’m turning 50 this year and still remember the community centers and basements and feeling the floor shake in a second floor apartment in Brookyn that was for some reason accessible only via the fire escape.

Then a good friend sent me this video of the great Ian McKellen on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, talking about live theater, and doing anything to be in those places, and the magic that happens if only we get off our fucking phones.

It’s the rooms, the spaces, the theater of humanity that endures, that allows the magic to happen, the let me find these two different pieces on this morning and to put them into a blog post that is accessible around the world via the web browser that ships on every smart phone.